Division  CBS'S 
Section  .  I  r  Hr 


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The  Philosophy  of 
Civilization 


By 

R.  H.  Towner 


“  Stand  fast  therefore  in  the  liberty  wherewith  Christ  hath  made 
us  free,  and  be  not  entangled  again  with  the  yoke  of  bondage 


In  Two  Volumes 
Volume  One 


G.P.  Putnam’s  Sons 

Jv^ewYork  &  London 

XRje  Knickerbocker  J3res  S 

1923 


Copyright,  1923 
by 

R.  H .  Towner 


Made  in  the  United  States  of  America 


PREFACE 


Geography  has  broadened  while  history  and  archaeology 
have  lengthened  the  field  of  mankind’s  social  vision  so  that 
the  present  civilization  has  a  background  and  a  perspective 
heretofore  unknown.  Man’s  knowledge  has  increased  and 
the  larger  world  of  three  dimensions  now  disclosed  to  his 
eager  eyes  presents  new  factors  that  the  ancient  sages  could 
not  see.  It  is  no  longer  possible  to  regard  our  civilization 
as  a  just  and  permanent  testimonial  to  the  superiority  of  a 
color,  a  race,  a  nation,  a  government  or  a  religion.  Rather, 
it  is  now  seen  to  be  but  one  of  a  recurring  series  of  like 
phenomena,  destined  perhaps  to  disappear  as  all  its  pre¬ 
decessors  have  disappeared.  Each  addition  to  our  knowl¬ 
edge  of  these  predecessors,  each  new  evidence  of  their  rise 
and  fall,  increases  our  sense  of  the  impermanence  of  our 
own  civilization.  Wonder  and  anxiety  as  to  its  fate  are 
often  expressed  by  writers  conscious  of  its  height,  sometimes 
doubtful  of  its  benefits,  and  always  fearful  of  its  fall. 

But  knowledge  of  the  rise  and  fall  of  other  civilizations 
may  serve  a  better  purpose  than  simply  to  excite  our  fears 
as  to  the  fate  of  our  own.  History  asks  and  answers  ques¬ 
tions;  and  the  study  of  history’s  repetitions  enables  an 
impartial  investigator  to  discern  like  factors  operating  with 
like  effect  upon  successive  human  groups  in  the  past.  These 
different  factors  may  be  seen  and  isolated  and  their  different 
effects  described.  Certain  factors  are  found  to  be  always 
present  during  the  rising  period  of  each  group’s  separate 
civilization.  These  factors  decline,  disappear  or  are  re¬ 
versed  and  other  and  opposite  factors  become  effective  in 
modifying  the  same  groups  during  the  period  of  their 
civilization’s  fall.  Reason  and  evidence  combine  to  prove 
that  factors  thus  observed  and  isolated  are  in  reality  causa- 

iii 


IV 


PREFACE 


tions ;  that  those  factors  always  present  in  rising  civilizations 
actually  cause  their  rise;  and  that  opposite  factors,  always 
present  in  declining  civilizations,  actually  cause  civilization’s 
fall;  so  that  by  merely  observing  the  factors  affecting  and 
modifying  our  own  or  another  national  group,  its  future 
may  be  computed  and  predicted  with  mathematical  cer¬ 
tainty.  Nations,  moreover,  if  intelligently  disposed  to  do 
so,  may,  by  changing  from  unfavorable  to  favorable  the 
factors  effective  on  the  national  group,  arrest  at  any  time  a 
threatened  national  decline  and  insure  for  their  posterity 
the  certainty  of  future  national  greatness. 

While  the  possibility  of  arresting  national  decline  and 
consciously  preserving  a  conscious  civilization  by  the  in¬ 
telligent  application  of  the  science  of  mathematics  to  the 
solution  of  the  problem  of  the  national  future  is  of  general 
and  permanent  interest,  it  has  now  an  especial  interest  and 
importance  for  the  several  countries  inhabited  by  the  Eng¬ 
lish-speaking  people.  The  civilization  attained  by  all  who 
speak  the  English  tongue  has  advanced  by  like  steps, 
influenced  by  like  factors,  to  about  the  same  height  and  is 
now  threatened  by  a  similar  and  synchronous  decline. 
There  is  abundant  evidence  that  the  civilization  of  all  the 
English-speaking  peoples  has  reached  its  turning  point. 
Like  all  other  civilizations  its  rise  was  wholly  fortuitous ;  no 
conscious  intelligence  of  its  own  numbers  consciously 
introduced  the  factors  necessary  to  attain  its  present  height 
or  gave  it  conscious  directions  to  avoid  a  fall.  Like  other 
civilizations  its  rise  was  fairly  continuous  for  about  three 
centuries,  that  is,  from  the  sixteenth  to  the  nineteenth 
century  of  our  era,  or  from  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII  to 
Victoria.  Like  other  civilizations  it  was  centrifugal  and 
expansive  so  as  to  carry  the  arms,  flag,  language  and  customs 
of  its  narrow  island  home  to  the  uttermost  parts  of  the 
globe  and  extend  its  dominion  over  hundreds  of  millions 
scattered  throughout  a  great  empire  and  a  great  republic. 

But  a  review  of  its  past  intensifies  the  interest  in  its 
future.  The  English-speaking  people  were  influenced  during 


PREFACE 


v 


their  rise  by  favorable  factors  which  have  now  declined  and 
have  begun  to  disappear.  Those  factors  that  during  the 
eighteenth  and  nineteenth  centuries  were  continuously 
improving  each  successive  generation  of  their  descendants 
are  no  longer  effective  and  the  fortuitous  improvement  of 
posterity  has  ceased.  New  factors  unknown  to  the  genera¬ 
tions  of  their  immediate  ancestors  have  begun  to  replace 
the  old,  and  their  cumulative  effect,  increasing  with  each 
generation,  will  soon  be  apparent  in  a  changed  and  declining 
posterity.  The  change  will  be  proportionate  to  the  differ¬ 
ence  between  the  old  factors  which  have  disappeared  and 
the  new  ones  that  have  supplanted  them.  Accordingly,  by 
isolating  and  observing  the  factors  common  to  the  rising 
period  of  all  other  fortuitous  civilizations;  by  noting  the 
generation  when  these  factors  ceased  to  operate  and  new 
factors  appeared;  and  by  marking  the  difference  between 
the  old  factors  and  the  new,  it  becomes  possible  to  compute 
the  period  when  such  civilizations  reach  their  peak,  the 
generation  when  their  decline  may  be  expected  and  the 
causes  of  that  decline. 

In  the  following  pages  there  is  presented  and  examined 
the  evidence  afforded  by  history  of  the  factors  that  caused 
the  rise  and  fall  of  four  ancient  civilizations — Israel,  Greece, 
Rome  and  Islam.  It  is  likewise  shown  that  the  rise  of 
modern  civilization  followed  from  the  same  causes  whereby 
all  these  ancient  civilizations  rose;  and  that  its  fall  may  be 
expected  from  the  same  factors  which  caused  their  fall. 
I  have  chosen  in  most  cases  to  quote  rather  than  to  para¬ 
phrase  so  that  the  evidence  is  usually  given  in  the  language 
of  the  historians  themselves.  But  the  reader  will  find  the 
narrative  continuous  and  will  have  no  difficulty  in  reading 
into  the  text  the  extracts  from  historical  authorities. 

Always  in  dealing  with  groups  of  large  numbers  extend¬ 
ing  over  many  generations  of  time,  the  temporal  factors 
whose  incalculable  results  are  expended  on  mortals,  offset 
each  other  and  may  be  cancelled  out  of  the  problem.  It  is 
the  eternal  factors,  affecting  and  modifying  groups  for 


VI 


PREFA CE 


many  generations,  whose  results  are  calculable  and  account 
for  civilization’s  rise  and  fall.  These  eternal  factors  are 
comparatively  few;  but  their  effects  are  uniform  and  may 
be  computed  with  mathematical  exactness.  It  is  the 
reversal  of  these  eternal  factors  that  now  threatens  the 
civilization  of  English-speaking  peoples. 

The  selection  of  mothers  has  changed  from  favorable  to 
unfavorable,  so  that  women  of  augmented  nervous  or¬ 
ganization,  once  extremely  fruitful,  have  become  less  fruit¬ 
ful  with  each  succeeding  generation,  and  are  now  nearly 
barren.  The  result  is  seen  in  a  dearth  of  young  genius,  a 
decline  of  spirituality,  and  an  increasing  love  of  visible 
things.  The  vertebrate  structure  of  government  and 
family  has  changed  to  invertebrate,  with  the  result  that 
freedom  and  diversity,  always  present  in  rising  civilizations, 
have  been  supplanted  by  espionage  and  uniformity,  the 
invariable  stigmata  of  decline. 

The  toleration  of  minorities  which  for  two  centuries 
divided  all  the  English-speaking  people  among  a  multitude 
of  different  sects,  each  governed  by  its  own  religious  faith, 
has  yielded  to  numerical  standards  of  orthodoxy,  fixing  by  a 
multitude  of  new  statutes  visible  and  uniform  rules  of 
conduct,  enforced  by  an  absolute  government  upon  all 
faiths  alike.  Visible  and  corporeal  regulation  has  ex¬ 
tinguished  invisible  and  spiritual  guidance  and  the  great 
spiritual  revivals  characteristic  of  a  rising  civilization  are 
no  longer  seen  in  English-speaking  countries. 

The  growing  intolerance,  the  extinction  of  all  diversity 
and  the  denial  of  spiritual  authority  over  individual  con¬ 
duct  are  further  evidenced  by  the  changed  attitude  toward 
private  property  and  drink.  So  that  everywhere  in  the 
English-speaking  world  rights  of  private  property  are 
already  greatly  impaired  and  may  soon  be  lost ;  while  whole 
states  and  nations  have  changed  from  the  drinking  religion 
of  their  Christian  ancestors  to  an  Asiatic  prohibition  of  wine. 

And  finally,  to  all  the  other  evidence  of  their  decline  to 
Asiatic  standards,  add  the  fact  that  English-speaking 


PREFA  CE 


Vll 


people  have  ceased  to  be  centrifugal  and  no  longer  send  out 
pioneers  to  settle  on  new  lands.  They  are  gradually 
abandoning  even  the  lands  settled  by  their  own  immediate 
ancestors.  So  that  in  every  English-speaking  country  each 
census  shows  an  increase  in  the  urban  and  a  decrease  in  the 
rural  population.  This  change  from  centrifugal  to  centri¬ 
petal  is  characteristic  of  declining  nervous  organizations. 

Individual  and  spiritual  freedom,  independence,  dissent 
and  isolation  are  so  precious  to  higher  nervous  organiza¬ 
tions  that  pioneers  will  brave  the  bodily  terrors  of  the 
wilderness  to  gain  these  spiritual  comforts  for  the  soul. 
Not  so  with  lower  nervous  organizations.  They  seek  de¬ 
pendence,  conformity,  unity,  visible  and  numerical  stand¬ 
ards,  enforced  by  worldly  powers.  Their  interest  is  in  this 
world,  its  dangers,  comforts  and  amusements.  They  leave 
pioneering  to  higher  spirits,  and,  for  themselves,  they  love 
to  concentrate  in  cities,  to  huddle  around  a  government  and 
expect  it  to  keep  them  and  their  offspring  perpetually  and 
uniformly  fed,  clothed,  housed,  warmed,  pleased  and  good. 
Such  was  the  Roman  rabble  after  Augustus;  such  is  now 
most  of  the  English-speaking  race.  In  each  civilization  it 
marks  a  like  change  and  a  certain  decline. 

Such  reversal  of  the  factors  whereby  our  civilization 
rose,  must  inevitably  lead  to  its  fall.  Unless  the  evil  factors 
which  have  usurped  the  place  of  good  factors,  can  be  them¬ 
selves  stamped  out  and  the  favorable  factors  of  the 
eighteenth  and  nineteenth  centuries  again  restored  to 
exercise  their  improving  influence  on  successive  generations 
of  posterity,  the  present  civilization  of  all  English-speaking 
countries  must,  like  every  ancient  civilization,  decline  and 
fall.  The  computation  of  the  effect  of  these  factors  on 
human  groups  is  exact,  accurate  and  unimpeachable. 
Every  civilization  obeys  the  immutable  law  of  numbers. 
And  this  law  sternly  decrees  the  doom  of  every  civilization 
that  reverses  the  factors  whereby  it  rose. 

R.  H.  Towner. 


New  York,  May,  1923. 


I 


* 


. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I. — Temporal  and  Eternal  3 

II. — The  Selection  of  Mothers  .  .  .11 

III.  — Israel  .......  24 

IV.  — Hellenes  ......  30 

V. — Rome  .......  43 

VI. — Eastern  Empire . 100 

VII. — Islam . 116 

VIII. — Polygamy . 134 

IX. — Europe  from  the  Fifth  to  the  Tenth 

Century  .  .  .  .  .  .143 

X. — Modern  Civilization.  (Tenth  to  the 

Sixteenth  Century)  .  .  .  .172 

XI. — Modern  Civilization.  (Sixteenth  to 

the  Nineteenth  Century)  .  .212 

XII. — Private  Property  ....  259 


IX 


The  Philosophy  of  Civilization 


VOL.  I — X 


I 


The  Philosophy  of  Civilization 

CHAPTER  I 

TEMPORAL  AND  ETERNAL 

i.  Spin  a  roulette  wheel  once,  and  it  is  impossible  to 
foretell  what  number  the  ball  will  seek.  Spin  the  same  wheel, 
under  the  same  conditions,  a  million  times,  and  it  is  possible 
to  foretell  the  result  with  mathematical  exactness.  If  the 
wheel  be  true,  so  that  equality  of  opportunity  is  offered  to 
the  little  ball,  it  will  fall  into  each  numbered  compartment 
an  equal  number  of  times.  In  a  million  plays  it  will  come 
red  as  often  as  black;  odd  as  often  as  even.  This  result  will 
recur  with  mathematical  certainty  with  each  succeeding 
million,  as  long  as  equality  of  opportunity  is  preserved.  If, 
at  the  end  of  the  first  million,  there  appears  the  tiniest  frac¬ 
tion  of  discrepancy  between  the  various  numbers,  that  frac¬ 
tion  will  be  corrected  in  succeeding  millions.  There  will 
never  be  a  continuous  departure  from  equality;  but  the 
actual  result  will  forever  oscillate  near  and  forever  return  to 
it,  so  that  no  one  number,  and  no  group  of  numbers,  whether 
odd  or  even,  or  red  or  black,  will  establish  a  permanent 
ascendency.  Whatever  variation  there  is  from  this  exact 
equality,  is  temporary  and  apparent  only;  the  variation, 
even  in  a  much  smaller  group  than  a  million  plays,  will  never 
exceed  the  proportion  of  36  to  37. 

Arrange  a  million  roulette  wheels  in  a  square  plane,  one 
thousand  to  a  side.  Spin  them  simultaneously.  If,  again, 
each  wheel  is  true  so  that  equality  of  opportunity  is  offered 


3 


4 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


to  the  little  ball,  the  result  will  be  the  same  as  when  one 
wheel  is  played  a  million  times.  The  various  numbers  will 
come  out  in  perfect  equality.  There  will  be  no  difference 
between  red  and  black,  odd  and  even.  Now  continue  spin¬ 
ning  these  million  wheels,  and  introduce  into  them  a  definite 
factor  of  inequality.  Let  one  of  the  red  numbered  compart¬ 
ments  be  covered  so  that  the  ball  cannot  enter.  In  a  single 
spin  of  one  wheel,  the  absence  of  one  red  compartment  will 
be  hardly  discernible  in  the  result.  In  a  dozen  spins  there 
might  be  a  run  of  twelve  successive  reds.  In  a  hundred 
spins,  red  might  come  a  majority  of  times.  In  a  million,  the 
result  of  closing  one  red  compartment  will  be  recorded  with 
mathematical  exactness.  Instead  of  red  and  black  coming 
out  an  equal  number  of  times,  there  will  be,  infallibly,  a 
change  to  the  proportion  of  1 7  to  1 8.  Continue  spinning  the 
million  wheels ;  and  now  let  the  first  twelve  numbered  com¬ 
partments  gradually  and  insensibly  diminish  in  size  at  the 
rate  of  a  millimetre  a  year  for  each.  Again  the  result, 
inestimable  on  one  spin  of  one  wheel,  and  indiscernible, 
perhaps,  for  a  long  time  on  the  play  of  one  wheel,  will,  in¬ 
fallibly,  be  recorded  on  a  million  wheels.  The  first  twelve 
numbers  will  no  longer  sustain  their  exact  equality  with  the 
second  twelve,  and  the  third  twelve.  The  factor  which  in¬ 
troduces  inequality,  however  slight,  will  be  accurately 
recorded.  As  the  experiment  continues,  it  will  be  possible 
to  observe,  and  to  estimate  exactly  from  the  record  of  the 
plays,  the  continuing  diminution  of  these  compartments. 
It  can  be  seen,  too,  when  the  diminution  stops;  when  it  is 
reversed,  and  the  first  twelve  compartments  restored  to 
equality  with  the  rest ;  and  when  they  are  enlarged.  As  the 
wheels  continue  spinning,  time  will  record,  with  mathe¬ 
matical  certainty,  every  change  that  takes  place  in  the 
size  of  the  compartments,  i.e.,  in  the  equality  of  oppor¬ 
tunity. 

Mathematical  law,  which  infallibly  rules  the  group,  does 
not  necessarily  govern  its  separate  units.  So  in  the  play  of 
roulette,  it  may  be  observed  that  each  separate  spin  of  the 


TEMPORAL  AND  ETERNAL 


5 


wheel  appears  to  be  independent  of  any  law,  and  is  an  opera¬ 
tion  of  chance  alone.  Increase  the  number  of  spins  to  a 
group  sufficiently  large,  and  it  becomes  evident  that,  al¬ 
though  each  separate  spin  is  an  operation  of  chance  alone, 
the  group  records  results  in  which  chance  has  no  part.  As 
the  number  of  spins  increases,  the  operations  of  chance  di¬ 
minish.  Mathematical  law,  partially  and  imperfectly  ex¬ 
hibited  in  a  small  group,  increases  its  sway  as  the  number  is 
enlarged,  and  finally  establishes  its  supreme  rule.  So  that, 
in  the  progress  of  numbers  from  one  spin  of  one  wheel  to  a 
million  spins  of  a  million  wheels,  chance,  which  ruled  at  the 
beginning,  has  abdicated,  and  mathematical  law,  powerless 
at  the  start,  has  become  firmly  enthroned. 

2.  It  is  evident  that  unit  and  group  are  subject  to  differ¬ 
ent  sets  of  factors  corresponding  to  things  temporal  and 
things  eternal.  These  factors  differ  in  number,  in  power,  and 
in  time.  The  aggregate  power  of  all  the  unit  factors  is  ex¬ 
pressed  in  one  group  factor;  so  that  although  the  numbers 
of  the  former  infinitely  exceed  the  latter,  a  single  group  fac¬ 
tor  is  infinitely  stronger  than  any  single  unit  factor.  Hence 
the  oscillations  of  the  units  are  within  bounds  set  by  the 
factors  ruling  the  group.  These  boundaries  may  be  known, 
but  within  them  the  entire  multitude  of  unit  factors  cannot 
be  known  or  foreseen,  so  that  the  action  of  each  unit  seems 
to  be  the  result  of  chance  alone.  But  the  unknown  unit 
factors  are  so  brief  that  they  expire  with  the  unit  on  which 
they  are  exerted.  As  they  are  continually  expiring,  and  are 
continually  new,  the  action  of  each  unit  (within  the  bounds 
set  by  group  factors)  is  different.  The  life  of  the  group  fac¬ 
tor,  however,  equals  in  duration  the  sum  of  the  lives  of  all 
the  unit  factors ;  so  that,  although  the  unit  may  be  governed 
by  factors  which  are  unstable,  ephemeral,  and  unsolved, 
the  group  is  ruled  by  factors  which  are  stable,  durable,  and 
ascertainable.  The  difference  is  briefly  and  accurately 
expressed  by  calling  unit  factors  temporal  and  group  fac¬ 
tors  eternal. 

The  temporal  factors  which  govern  the  action  of  units 


6 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


cannot  be  known,  nor  the  action  of  units  foreseen;  but  the 
eternal  factors  which  rule  the  group  may  be  ascertained, 
and  the  results  of  these  factors  be  exactly  computed. 1 

1  While  we  are  making  these  reflections,  the  ivory  ball  slackens  its 
course  and  begins  to  hop  like  a  noisy  insect  over  the  thirty-seven  com¬ 
partments  that  allure  it.  This  is  the  irrevocable  judgment.  O  strange 
infirmity  of  our  eyes,  our  ears  and  that  brain  of  which  we  are  so  proud. 
O  strange  secrets  of  the  most  elementary  laws  of  this  world.  From  the 
second  at  which  the  ball  was  set  in  motion  to  the  second  at  which  it 
falls  into  the  fatefui  hole,  on  the  battle-field  three  yards  long,  in  this 
childish  and  mocking  form,  the  mystery  of  the  Universe  inflicts  a  sym¬ 
bolical,  incessant  and  disheartening  defeat  upon  human  power  and 
reason.  Collect  around  this  table  all  the  wise  men,  all  the  divines,  all 
the  seers,  all  the  sages,  all  the  prophets,  all  the  saints,  all  the  wonder¬ 
workers,  all  the  mathematicians,  all  the  geniuses  of  every  time  and  every 
country;  ask  them  to  search  their  reason,  their  soul,  their  knowledge, 
their  Heaven  for  the  number  so  close  at  hand,  the  number  already  almost 
part  of  the  present  at  which  the  little  ball  will  end  its  race;  beg  them,  so 
that  they  may  foretell  that  number  to  us,  to  invoke  their  gods  that  know 
all,  their  thoughts  that  govern  the  nations  and  aspire  to  penetrate  the 
worlds:  all  their  efforts  will  break  against  this  brief  puzzle  which  a  child 
could  take  in  its  hand  and  which  no  longer  fills  the  smallest  moment’s 
space.  No  one  has  been  able  to  do  it,  no  one  will  ever  do  it.  And  all  the 
strength,  all  the  certainty  of  the  “bank,”  which  is  the  impassive,  stub¬ 
born,  determined  and  ever- victorious  ally  of  the  rhythmical  and  absolute 
wisdom  of  Chance,  lies  solely  in  the  establishment  of  man's  powerless¬ 
ness  to  foresee,  were  it  but  for  the  third  of  a  second,  that  which  is  about 
to  happen  before  his  eyes.  If,  in  the  span  of  nearly  fifty  years  during 
which  these  formidable  experiments  have  been  made  on  this  flower-clad 
rock,  one  single  being  had  been  found  who,  in  the  course  of  an  afternoon, 
had  tom  the  veil  of  mystery  that  covers,  at  each  throw,  the  tiny  future 
of  the  tiny  ball,  the  bank  would  have  been  broken,  the  undertaking 
wrecked.  But  that  abnormal  being  has  not  appeared ;  and  the  bank  well 
knows  that  he  will  never  come  to  sit  at  one  of  its  tables.  We  see,  there¬ 
fore,  how,  in  spite  of  all  his  pride  and  all  his  hopes,  man  knows  that  he 
can  know  nothing. 

Maeterlinck,  Temple  of  Chance. 

In  respect  to  the  above  one  may  offer  certain  observations: 

I.  There  seems  to  be  no  reason  why  a  mathematician,  who  deals 
with  numbers,  should  be  required  to  prognosticate  an  isolated  individual 
event. 

II.  The  result  of  a  number  of  spins  sufficiently  large,  is  perfectly 
well  known,  not  only  to  mathematicians  but  to  the  bank. 


TEMPORAL  AND  ETERNAL 


7 


The  individual  fact,  subject  to  chance  rather  than  to  law, 
proves  nothing  but  itself.  It  affords  no  means  of  prognosti¬ 
cating  another  individual  fact;  it  offers  no  evidence  of  the 
existence  of  law ;  it  declares  only  the  result  of  a  multitude  of 
factors,  chiefly  unknown.  Group  facts,  subject  to  law  in¬ 
stead  of  to  chance,  prove  much  besides  chemselves.  They 
discover  the  factors  influencing  the  group ;  they  offer  means 
for  prognosticating  the  action  of  like  groups  influenced  by 
like  factors;  or  of  the  same  group  under  the  same  factors,  or 
with  these  factors  removed,  or  reversed;  and  they  declare 
a  law  of  causation  which  makes  it  possible  to  proceed  in 
either  direction — so  that  knowledge  of  the  factor  affords 
knowledge  of  the  action  of  the  group,  or  knowledge  of  the 
action  of  the  group  affords  knowledge  of  the  factor.  Thus 
it  is  possible  to  look  backward  on  a  group  of  events,  and 
ascertain  the  factor  or  factors  of  causation;  and  having 
ascertained  these  factors,  it  is  possible  to  look  forward,  and 
determine  the  course  of  a  future  group  of  events.  Intel¬ 
lect  gains  a  new  source  of  knowledge. 

III.  The  strength  of  the  “bank,”  and  the  profit  of  its  operations, 
depends  upon  its  foreknowledge  of  this  result;  so  that  by  continually 
paying  35  to  1  on  an  event,  the  odds  against  which  are  36  to  1 ,  the  bank 
secures  a  constant  and  certain  profit  without  taking  any  chances  what¬ 
ever.  There  is  no  mystery  about  the  source  of  this  profit,  and  it  would 
disappear  if  the  bank  paid  37  to  1. 

IV.  Inability  to  foretell  a  single  isolated  event  is  not  evidence  that 
man  knows  nothing.  On  the  contrary,  all  cosmic  phenomena  occur  in 
groups  which  are  subject  to  mathematical  law,  and  when  man  knows 
the  factors  influencing  these  groups  he  knows  a  great  deal,  and  can  very 
readily  and  usefully  foretell  the  future. 

V.  This  is  so  true  that  there  are  no  wagers  upon  group  phenomena; 
and  men  who  desire  to  gamble  are  at  much  pains  to  create  an  un¬ 
certainty  that  is  worth  a  bet.  Thus  the  only  betting  at  roulette  is  on 
the  result  of  a  single  spin  or  a  few  separate  spins.  No  one  would  bet  on 
the  result  of  a  hundred  thousand  or  a  million  spins,  because  that  result 
is  certain,  and  is  known.  So  also  no  one  would  bet  on  the  result  of  a 
race  between  a  group  of  race  horses  and  a  group  of  cart  horses.  Even 
contests  between  race  horses  become  so  certain  that  distances  and 
weights  must  be  continually  changed  in  order  to  create  enough  un¬ 
certainty  to  stimulate  betting. 


8 


THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


It  is  by  these  means  that  actuaries,  profoundly  ignorant 
of  the  duration  of  a  single  human  life,  compute  with  mathe¬ 
matical  exactness  the  mortality  in  a  group  of  a  million  lives. 
Prophecy  instead  of  being  a  magical  revelation  is  simply  a 
problem  in  mathematics. 

3.  Civilization  is  a  group,  not  an  individual  phenomenon. 
It  must  be  studied,  therefore,  through  an  investigation  of 
its  group  facts,  i.e.,  facts  common  to  successive  generations 
of  parents  and  children.  The  true  human  group  is  of  three 
dimensions.  Two  dimensions  constitute  a  social  plane  em¬ 
bracing  the  individuals  of  contemporaneous  existence — the 
single  year,  decade,  generation,  or  century.  The  third  di¬ 
mension  includes  their  ancestors  and  posterity  as  the  social 
plane  moves  through  time  to  make  a  cube.  The  mental 
picture  of  a  million  roulette  wheels  spinning  continuously 
through  centuries  of  time,  illustrates  the  application  of 
mathematical  law  to  human  society.  Each  spin  of  each 
wheel  is  apparently  an  operation  of  chance  alone,  independ¬ 
ent  of  all  the  spins  which  precede  or  follow  it.  But  mathe¬ 
matical  law  rules  the  group  and  infallibly  determines  the 
result  of  all  the  spins.  So,  though  each  single  human  life 
is  governed  by  factors  so  incalculable,  that  its  course,  dura¬ 
tion,  and  result  can  neither  be  foreseen  nor  explained,  a 
group  of  human  lives  continuously  affected  by  like  factors, 
and  continuously  changed  by  death  and  birth,  is  subject 
not  to  chance  but  to  mathematical  law.  Factors  common 
to  such  a  group,  continuing  through  centuries,  constant, 
changing,  reversing,  or  expiring,  may  be  isolated,  examined, 
defined,  and  their  influence  described.  These  may  be  seen 
operating  elsewhere  upon  like  groups  and  producing  like 
results.  Knowledge  of  them  enables  the  observer  to  declare 
with  mathematical  certainty  the  reasons  for  civilization’s 
rise  and  fall ;  to  show  the  course  of  human  events  in  the  past, 
and  to  prognosticate  its  future.  All  this  can  be  done  only 
with  groups,  and  only  by  the  application  of  mathematical 
law  to  group  facts,  extending  through  time. 

4.  Civilization  is  a  result  of  the  continuous  improvement 


TEMPORAL  AND  ETERNAL 


9 


of  posterity.  The  change,  however,  from  savagery  to 
civilization  is  a  change  of  spirit  rather  than  of  body.  The 
anatomist  placing  on  the  dissecting  table,  side  by  side,  the 
bodies  of  a  savage  and  a  civilized  man,  finds  their  physical 
structure  nearly  identical.  Slight  differences  in  cranial 
measurements  perhaps  distinguish  them.  The  psychologist, 
on  the  other  hand,  finds  between  the  spirit  of  savage  and 
civilized  groups,  a  great  and  impassable  gulf.  In  civilized 
man,  the  nervous  system  has  grown  so  that  the  skull  is  con¬ 
siderably  enlarged,  and  its  shape  sensibly  changed.  With 
the  augmentation  of  the  nervous  system,  has  come  an  in¬ 
crease  of  spiritual  stature.  Civilized  man  is  capable  of  know¬ 
ledge,  reason,  free  will  and  self-restraint ;  intellectual  quali¬ 
ties  unknown  to  the  primitive.  The  change  is  not  only  of 
degree,  but  of  kind.  Mental  processes  unconceived  by  and 
impossible  to  savages,  are  familiarly  and  daily  employed  in 
civilization.  The  sense  of  abstract  justice,  the  capacity  for 
abstract  reasoning,  the  worship  of  an  abstract  God,  the 
faculty  of  conscious  observation  and  the  employment  of  the 
science  of  mathematics,- — these  are  a  few  examples  of  the 
mental  changes  which  open  to  civilized  man  an  intellectual 
and  spiritual  world  into  which  savages  have  no  entry. 

The  continuous  improvement  of  posterity,  therefore,  is  a 
spiritual  improvement  alone.  The  nervous  system  is  aug¬ 
mented,  the  intellect  develops,  the  spiritual  stature  in¬ 
creases.  The  body  remains  nearly  unchanged. 

It  is  plain,  then,  that  those  human  groups  whose  rise  in 
civilization  is  recorded  in  history,  were  influenced  by  factors 
favorable  to  the  augmentation  of  the  spiritual  stature  of 
posterity;  that  these  factors  operated  continuously  over  a 
period  of  time,  measurably  corresponding  to  civilization’s 
rise;  and  ceased  to  operate  at  or  about  the  time  when  pos¬ 
terity  no  longer  showed  spiritual  improvement,  and  when 
civilization  consequently  fell.  An  examination  of  completed 
groups,  in  civilizations  which  have  risen,  flourished  and 
decayed,  shows  successive  generations  of  improvement  and 
of  deterioration  of  posterity.  The  reasons  for  each  are 


IO  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


ascertainable  from  evidence.  History  affords  the  means  of 
gathering  this  evidence,  and  of  learning  therefrom  why 
civilization  rose  in  Greece,  Italy  or  southern  Spain,  and  why 
in  turn  it  fell. 


CHAPTER  II 


THE  SELECTION  OF  MOTHERS 

5.  Mankind’s  ascent  from  savagery  to  civilization  is 
invariably  marked  by  a  striking  improvement  in  sexual 
morals — shown,  in  both  men  and  women,  by  an  increase  in 
continence,  and  distinguished  in  women  particularly,  by 
the  growth  of  sexual  coldness.  The  facts  as  to  incontinence 
among  savages  generally  are  fully  recounted  in  history  and 
travel  and  need  not  be  repeated  here.  The  facts  as  to  the 
sexual  coldness  of  women  in  civilization  are  now  recorded 
in  the  works  of  doctors,  and  may  be  accepted  as  fully 
established. 

“The  number  of  women  afflicted  with  the  anomaly  of 
frigidity  is  considerable.  It  is  claimed  by  many  authorities 
that  ten  to  twenty  per  cent,  of  all  womankind  is  afflicted 
with  this  anomaly.  The  number  of  cases  met  with 
in  the  author’s  practice  inclines  him  to  regard  this  as  an 
underestimate.”  {Woman,  by  B.  S.  Talmey,  M.D.,  New 
York,  1904,  Chap.  LI.) 

“The  most  divergent  opinions  are  entertained  relative  to 
the  feminine  sexual  impulse,  and  there  are  those  who  hold 
that  sexual  anaesthesia  should  be  considered  as  natural  in 
women,  and  maintain  that  any  other  opinion  would  be 
degrading;  while  others  who  do  not  share  this  opinion  be¬ 
lieve  that  sexual  frigidity  among  civilized  women  is  un¬ 
naturally  prevalent.” 

“The  conditions  of  women  in  regard  to  their  marital 
relations  vary  with  the  individual,  and  for  convenience 
married  women  have  been  divided  into  the  following  classes : 

“First.  Women  so  situated  and  constructed,  both  physi¬ 
cally  and  mentally,  that  they  respond  to  the  caresses  of  the 
husband  at  all  times. 

“Second.  Those  who  can  under  reasonable  circumstances, 


11 


12  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


by  a  voluntary  effort  hasten  or  retard  the  climax  to  meet  the 
varying  conditions  under  which  they  live. 

“Third.  Those  who  are  unable  to  properly  participate, 
or  bring  into  requisition  any  physical  or  mental  methods  to 
produce  simultaneous  orgasm,  or  harmonious  relations,  but 
are  left  excited,  nervous  and  unsatisfied  after  coition. 

“Fourth.  Women  whose  sexual  passion  does  not  become 
aroused;  who  do  not  derive  any  pleasure  or  benefit  from 
copulation,  and  who  cannot  conceive  how  the  act  can  be 
pleasurable  to  anyone. 

“This  division  is  somewhat  arbitrary,  as  it  is  possible  for 
a  woman  to  be  put  in  any  of  these  classes  at  different  times 
during  her  marital  life. 

“It  is  also  impossible  to  determine  the  proportion  of 
women  in  any  of  these  classes,  but  it  has  been  estimated 
that  the  first  class  embraces  5  per  cent. ;  the  second  50  per 
cent. ;  the  third,  30  per  cent.,  and  the  last  15  per  cent,  of  all 
married  women. 

“According  to  this  estimate  nearly  one-half  the  women 
are  living  lives  that  can  be  neither  healthful  nor  congenial, 
and  whose  homes  are  lacking  in  a  fundamental  requisite 
for  happiness.”  ( Sexual  Life,  by  G.  W.  Malchow,  M.D., 
St.  Louis,  1907,  Chap.  Ill,  IX.) 

One  of  the  group  facts  of  civilization,  therefore,  is  the 
existence  of  a  large  percentage  of  frigid  mothers  bearing 
children  not  in  obedience  to  their  own  sexual  desires,  but 
from  other  causes.  A  woman’s  frigidity,  however,  does  not 
(as  with  man),  impair  or  destroy  her  capacity  for  parent¬ 
hood. 

“A  woman  may  fulfill  her  physiological  function  without 
any  subjective  sexual  satisfaction,  for  neither  sexual  desire 
nor  orgasm  are  necessary  to  fecundity,  and  that  very  many 
women  of  the  better  class  do  live  thus  passively  is  only  too 
true,  however  sad  it  may  be.”  (Malchow,  Ibid.) 

6.  The  evidence  therefore  is: 

a.  That,  in  civilization,  the  sexually  frigid  woman  has 
become  a  type,  which  exists  in  numbers  not  only  large 
enough  to  constitute  a  group,  but  to  form  a  considerable 
percentage  of  all  women. 


THE  SELECTION  OF  MOTHERS 


13 


b.  That  these  numbers  are  sufficient  to  warrant  the 
conclusion  that,  through  intermarriage,  the  offspring  of  such 
women  can  and  do  continue  their  strain. 

c.  That,  even  where  this  direct  continuation  does  not 
take  place,  their  strain  is  extensively  introduced  into  the 
strain  of  more  ardent  women,  so  as  effectually  to  dilute  the 
more  ardent  strains. 

d.  That,  through  their  offspring,  the  race  must  be 
sensibly  modified  in  respect  to  sexual  passion. 

e.  That  this  effect  is  produced  only  as,  when,  and  if, 
the  sexually  frigid  woman  becomes  a  mother.  Avoidance 
of  maternity  terminates  her  strain  and  reduction  of  her 
fecundity  pro  tanto  reduces  it. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  add  that  the  evidence  as  to  the 
existence  of  the  sexually  frigid  woman  as  a  type  is  confined 
wholly  to  civilization;  and  to  monogamy.  All  the  evidence 
of  uncivilized  and  polygamous  peoples  tends  to  prove 
that  the  type  has  never  there  existed  in  numbers  sufficient 
to  continue  the  frigid  strain.  Frigid  women  have  appeared 
as  individuals,  but  never  in  numbers  sufficient  to  constitute 
a  group,  and  therefore  never  capable  of  converting  their 
individual  strain  of  frigidity  into  a  type. 

7.  Among  savage  peoples  who  remain  savage,  and  among 
the  uncivilized  who  are  taking  the  earliest  steps  toward  civil¬ 
ization,  ardent  women  are  perennially  fruitful.  They  bear 
children  in  obedience  to  natural  and  subjective  demands. 
They  bear  usually  with  little  pain  and  little  danger;  they 
are  consequently  prolific  and  their  strain  tends  naturally  to 
multiply  and  to  fill  the  land.  Against  this  strain  the  frigid 
woman  is  in  uncivilized  times  an  unwilling  and  inefficient 
competitor.  She  willingly  escapes  maternity  altogether; 
or  she  bears  fewer  children,  and  bears  those  with  pain, 
difficulty  and  danger.  To  create  from  her  individual  strain 
a  type,  and  to  preserve  this  type  by  means  of  a  group  capa¬ 
ble  of  perpetuation,  requires  outside  influences  of  an  ex¬ 
tremely  favorable  character.  The  problem  is  one  entirely  of 
women;  since  frigidity  in  man  constitutes  impotence  and 


14  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


incapacitates  him  for  parenthood,  while  in  woman  it  does 
not.  The  first  essential,  to  a  favorable  selection  therefore, 
is  that  women  shall  be  denied  the  privilege  of  choosing 
whether  or  not  they  will  become  mothers.  If  this  choice  is 
left  to  women,  the  frigid  ones  will  escape  maternity  and  at 
once  extinguish  their  strain.  The  ardent  ones  will  continue 
to  multiply.  It  is  plainly  necessary  that  women  as  a  group 
shall  be  selected  for  motherhood  by  influences  other  than 
their  own  choice,  to  avoid  that  adverse  selective  influence 
which  would  result  from  choice  made  by  individual  women 
themselves.1 

8.  History  records  three  notable  examples  of  women 
mated  by  groups  under  circumstances  avoiding  adverse 
individual  selection.  In  each  instance,  the  group  was  large 
enough  to  contain  probably  one  or  more  individual  women 
of  sexual  frigidity.  In  each  instance,  the  terms  of  mating 
forbade  these  individuals  to  escape  maternity.  In  each 
instance,  after  some  generations,  a  very  marked  improve¬ 
ment  in  posterity  is  discovered,  with  one  or  more  examples 
of  distinguishable  genius. 

The  first  instance  is  the  tribe  of  Benjamin  in  Israel.  By 
a  shocking  crime,  all  Israel  was  roused  to  anger  and  slew  of 
the  tribe  of  Benjamin  twenty-five  thousand  men  and  all  the 
women  and  children. 

“But  six  hundred  men  turned  and  fled  to  the  wilderness 
unto  the  rock  Rimmon,  and  abode  in  the  rock  Rimmon  four 
months.”  (Judges,  XX,  47.)  These  six  hundred  men  were 
all  that  were  left  of  the  tribe  of  Benjamin. 

“And  the  children  of  Israel  repented  them  for  Benjamin 
their  brother,  and  said,  There  is  one  tribe  cut  off  from  Israel 
this  day. 

“How  shall  we  do  for  wives  for  them  that  remain,  seeing 

1  “Group  insurance  must  carefully  guard  against  adverse  individual 
selection.  Hence  the  necessity  for  insuring  the  group  on  a  basis  which 
does  not  leave  with  the  individual  the  power  to  decide  whether  or  not  he 
or  she  shall  enter  the  group.” 

(Group  Insurance  by  William  J.  Graham.  Transactions  of  the  Actua¬ 
rial  Society  of  America,  Vol.  XVII,  Part  II,  No.  56,  October,  1919.) 


THE  SELECTION  OF  MOTHERS 


15 


we  have  sworn  by  the  Lord  that  we  will  not  give  them  of  our 
daughters  to  wives? 

And  they  said,  what  one  is  there  of  the  tribes  of  Israel 
that  came  not  up  to  Mizpah  to  the  Lord?  And,  behold, 
there  came  none  to  the  camp  from  Jabesh-gilead  to  the 
assembly. 

“For  the  people  were  numbered,  and,  behold,  there  were 
none  of  the  inhabitants  of  Jabesh-gilead  there. 

“And  the  congregation  sent  thither  twelve  thousand 
men  of  the  valiantest,  and  commanded  them  saying,  Go 
and  smite  the  inhabitants  of  Jabesh-gilead  with  the  edge  of 
the  sword,  with  the  women  and  the  children. 

“And  this  is  the  thing  that  ye  shall  do.  Ye  shall  utterly 
destroy  every  male,  and  every  woman  that  hath  lain  by  man. 

“And  they  found  among  the  inhabitants  of  Jabesh-gilead 
four  hundred  young  virgins,  that  had  known  no  man  by 
lying  with  any  male :  and  they  brought  them  unto  the  camp 
to  Shiloh  which  is  in  the  land  of  Canaan. 

“And  the  whole  congregation  sent  some  to  speak  to  the 
children  of  Benjamin  that  were  in  the  rock  Rimmon,  and  to 
call  peaceably  unto  them. 

“And  Benjamin  came  again  at  that  time;  and  they  gave 
them  wives  which  they  had  saved  alive  of  the  women  of 
Jabesh-gilead :  and  yet  so  they  sufficed  them  not. 

“And  the  people  repented  them  for  Benjamin,  because 
that  the  Lord  had  made  a  breach  in  the  tribes  of  Israel. 

“Then  the  elders  of  the  congregation  said,  How  shall  we 
do  for  wives  for  them  that  remain,  seeing  the  women  are 
destroyed  out  of  Benjamin? 

“And  they  said,  There  must  be  an  inheritance  for  them 
that  be  escaped  of  Benjamin,  that  a  tribe  be  not  destroyed 
out  of  Israel. 

“Howbeit  we  may  not  give  them  wives  of  our  daughters: 
for  the  children  of  Israel  have  sworn,  saying,  Cursed  be  he 
that  giveth  a  wife  to  Benjamin. 

“Then  they  said,  Behold,  there  is  a  feast  of  the  Lord  in 
Shiloh  yearly  in  a  place  which  is  on  the  north  side  of  Bethel, 
on  the  east  side  of  the  highway  that  goeth  up  from  Bethel 
to  Shechem,  and  on  the  south  of  Lebonah. 

“Therefore  they  commanded  the  children  of  Benjamin, 
saying,  Go  and  lie  in  wait  in  the  vineyards; 

“And  see,  and,  behold,  if  the  daughters  of  Shiloh  come 
out  to  dance  in  dances,  then  come  ye  out  of  the  vineyards, 
and  catch  you  every  man  his  wife  of  the  daughters  of  Shiloh, 
and  go  to  the  land  of  Benjamin. 


16  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


“And  it  shall  be,  when  their  fathers  or  their  brethren 
come  unto  us  to  complain,  that  we  shall  say  unto  them,  Be 
favorable  unto  them  for  our  sakes ;  because  we  reserved  not 
to  each  man  his  wife  in  the  war:  for  ye  did  not  give  unto 
them  at  this  time,  that  ye  should  be  guilty. 

“And  the  children  of  Benjamin  did  so,  and  took  them 
wives,  according  to  their  number,  of  them  that  danced, 
whom  they  caught :  and  they  went  and  returned  unto  their 
inheritance,  and  repaired  the  cities,  and  dwelt  in  them. 
(Judges  XXI,  6-23.) 

Israel  was  generally  polygamous  at  that  time.  For  some 
generations,  monogamy  was  enforced  on  the  tribe  of  Benja¬ 
min  alone.  Of  these  six  hundred  men  each  could  obtain 
only  one  wife.  It  is  probable  that,  for  at  least  two  or  three 
generations,  a  natural  equality  in  the  numbers  of  the  sexes 
enforced  against  Benjamin  a  practical  monogamy.  The 
wives  obtained  by  the  six  hundred  were  mated  and  were 
made  mothers  regardless  of  their  own  choice  and,  in  the 
generations  immediately  following,  it  is  probable  that  all  the 
virgins  were  given  in  monogamous  marriage,  regardless  of 
their  own  choice.  Benjamin,  therefore,  for  a  considerable 
period  was  set  apart  from  the  other  tribes  of  Israel,  an  in¬ 
sular  monogamous  community  in  which  domestic  usages 
effectually  prevented  any  of  its  frigid  women  from  escaping 
maternity. 

Turn  now  to  I  Samuel,  Chapter  IX : 

“Now  there  was  a  man  of  Benjamin,  whose  name  was 
Kish,  the  son  of  Abiel,  the  son  of  Zeror,  the  son  of  Bechor- 
ath,  the  son  of  Aphiah,  a  Benjamite,  a  mighty  man  of  power. 

And  he  had  a  son,  whose  name  was  Saul,  a  choice  young 
man,  and  a  goodly;  and  there  was  not  among  the  children 
of  Israel  a  goodlier  person  than  he:  from  his  shoulders  and 
upward  he  was  higher  than  any  of  the  people.”  (I  Samuel, 
IX,  1,2.) 

According  to  the  accepted  chronology,  the  civil  war  be¬ 
tween  Benjamin  and  the  rest  of  Israel  and  the  rape  of  the 
virgins  of  Shiloh  occurred  about  B.c.  1406. 

Samuel  discovered  and  anointed  Saul  King  of  Israel, 


THE  SELECTION  OF  MOTHERS 


17 


b.c.  1095.  So  that  about  three  hundred  years  elapsed  from 
the  beginning  of  a  domestic  usage  which  enforced  in  the 
tribe  of  Benjamin  the  reproduction  of  frigid  women  to  the 
time  when  the  elevation  of  this  strain  is  advertised  in  the 
superior  qualities  of  Saul.  It  is  significant  evidence  of  the 
strain  of  sexual  coldness  introduced  into  the  tribe  of  Ben¬ 
jamin  that  Saul’s  daughter,  Michal,  should  be  recorded  as 
“in  love”  with  David.1  (I  Samuel,  XVIII,  20.)  This  is  the 
earliest  Biblical  record  of  a  virgin  being  in  love.  Up  to  this 
point  the  descriptions  of  marriage  indicate  in  women  a 
subjective  desire  for  mating  and  motherhood;  but  not  a  pre¬ 
ference  for  one  young  man  before  others.  Michal’s  love 
for  David  indicates  in  Saul’s  daughter  the  beginning  of  that 
partial  coldness  toward  the  other  sex  which  distinguishes 
civilized  from  savage  women.  Passion  instead  of  being  only 
a  subjective  desire  to  mate  with  some  man  becomes  a  limited 
desire  to  mate  with  one  man,  the  object  of  her  affections. 

9.  The  second  instance  is  the  Roman  rape  of  the  Sabines. 
Livy  describes  it  thus : 

“  There  was  a  great  gathering;  people  were  eager  to  see  the 
new  city,  all  their  nearest  neighbors — the  people  of  Caenina, 
Antemnae,  and  Crustumerium — were  there,  and  the  whole 
Sabine  population  came,  with  their  wives  and  families. 

“When  the  hour  for  the  games  had  come,  and  their  eyes 
and  minds  were  alike  riveted  on  the  spectacle  before  them, 
the  preconcerted  signal  was  given  and  the  Roman  youth 
dashed  in  all  directions  to  carry  off  the  maidens  who  were 
present.  The  larger  part  were  carried  off  indiscriminately, 
but  some  particularly  beautiful  girls  who  had  been  marked 
out  for  the  leading  patricians  were  carried  to  their  houses 
by  plebeians  told  off  for  the  task.  One,  conspicuous  amongst 
them  all  for  grace  and  beauty,  is  reported  to  have  been 
carried  off  by  a  group  led  by  a  certain  Talassius,  and  to  the 
many  inquiries  as  to  whom  she  was  intended  for,  the  invari- 

1  She  loved  him  before  marriage  and  despised  him  afterward.  Modem 
fiction  sometimes  deals  with  the  same  theme  of  wifely  change  toward 
a  husband  of  coarser  fibre.  In  “  A  Modem  Instance"  by  W.  D.  Howells, 
Bartley  and  Marcia  Hubbard  are  David  and  Michal  over  again  in  a 
setting  of  19th  Century  Boston. 


vol.  1 — t 


18  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


able  answer  was  given,  ‘For  Talassius.’  Hence  the  use  of 
this  word  in  the  marriage  rites.  Alarm  and  consternation 
broke  up  the  games,  and  the  parents  of  the  maidens  fled, 
distracted  with  grief,  uttering  bitter  reproaches  on  the  vio¬ 
lators  of  the  laws  of  hospitality  and  appealing  to  the  god  to 
whose  solemn  games  they  had  come,  only  to  be  the  victims 
of  impious  perfidy. 

“The  abducted  maidens  were  quite  as  despondent  and 
indignant.”  (Livy,  Bk.  I,  Chap.  IX.) 

Here  will  be  observed  the  mating  of  a  group  of  women  on 
terms  identical  with  those  just  described  in  the  case  of  the 
tribe  of  Benjamin.  The  Romans  seized  the  Sabine  virgins 
and  made  them  mothers  without  their  own  consent.  Ro¬ 
man  marriage  was  monogamous.  And  for  many  centuries 
Roman  custom  continued  to  give  virgins  in  marriage  regard¬ 
less  of  the  bride’s  consent. 

“  It  continues  also  a  custom  at  this  very  day  for  the  bride 
not  of  herself  to  pass  her  husband’s  threshold,  but  to  be 
lifted  over,  in  memory  that  the  Sabine  virgins  were  carried 
in  by  violence,  and  did  not  go  in  of  their  own  will.”  (Plu¬ 
tarch,  Life  of  Romulus.) 

The  number  of  virgins  taken  from  the  Sabines  is  variously 
given  at  from  five  hundred  and  twenty-seven  to  six  hundred 
and  eighty-three;  thus  the  number  was  roughly  about  the 
same  as  with  the  tribe  of  Benjamin.  The  cumulative  effect 
of  the  Roman  marriage  customs  soon  appears  in  an  improved 
posterity.  In  three  centuries,  the  Roman  people  achieved 
the  hegemony  of  all  the  Latins ;  drove  out  their  kings,  and 
displayed  an  exalted  spirituality  celebrated  in  the  stories  of 
Horatius,  Cincinnatus,  Lucretia,  and  Virginia.  In  two  more 
centuries  they  had  conquered  all  Italy,  met  and  beaten  off  the 
Greek  phalanx,  and  the  ambassador  of  Pyrrhus  reported  to 
his  master  that  the  Roman  Senate  resembled  an  assembly  of 
kings.  The  old  rowdy  habits  of  the  founders  of  the  city 
had  changed  to  a  gravity  and  a  decorum  which  impressed 
the  whole  world. 


THE  SELECTION  OF  MOTHERS 


19 


10.  The  third  example  of  a  like  sort  is  the  tribute  of 
maidens  paid  by  the  Chinese  to  the  Tartars.  Gibbon 
describes  it  thus : 

£‘A  select  band  of  the  fairest  maidens  of  China  was  an¬ 
nually  devoted  to  the  rude  embraces  of  the  Huns;  and  the 
alliance  of  the  haughty  Tanjous  was  secured  by  their  mar¬ 
riage  with  the  genuine,  or  adopted,  daughters  of  the  Im¬ 
perial  family  which  vainly  attempted  to  escape  the  sacrile¬ 
gious  pollution.  The  situation  of  these  unhappy  victims  is 
described  in  the  verses  of  a  Chinese  princess,  who  laments 
that  she  had  been  condemned  by  her  parents  to  a  distant 
exile,  under  a  barbarian  husband ;  who  complains  that  sour 
milk  was  her  only  drink,  raw  flesh  her  only  food,  a  tent  her 
only  palace ;  and  who  expresses,  in  a  strain  of  pathetic  sim¬ 
plicity,  the  natural  wish  that  she  were  transformed  into  a 
bird,  to  fly  back  to  her  dear  country,  the  object  of  her  tender 
and  perpetual  regret.”  (Gibbon,  Decline  and  Fall  of  the 
Roman  Empire ,  Chap.  XXVI.) 

This  passage  is  repeated  in  nearly  identical  words  in 
Ghenko:  The  Mongol  Invasion  of  Japan,  by  Nakaba  Yamada, 
N.  Y.,  1916.  In  this  work,  the  date  of  this  practice  (not 
given  by  Gibbon) ,  can  be  roughly  approximated.  It  began 
in  the  tenth  century,  probably  earlier  than  960  a.d.  Here, 
therefore,  for  a  considerable  period,  there  was  annually 
introduced  among  the  Mongol  or  Tartar  chiefs  (Gibbon 
uses  Mongol,  Tartar  or  Hun,  indifferently,  to  denote  the 
wild  barbarians  inhabiting  eastern  Siberia  north  of  the 
Chinese  wall),  reluctant  wives  paid  as  a  tribute,  accepting 
maternity  only  by  force  and  against  their  will.  They 
were  not  given  in  monogamous  marriage;  but  there  is  no 
doubt  that  the  brutal  vigor  of  their  husbands  was  quite 
as  effective  as  monogamy  to  enforce  maternity  upon  them. 
Among  the  Tartars,  therefore,  there  is  introduced  the  same 
strain  of  sexual  coldness,  and  by  the  same  means  as  already 
observed  among  the  first  Romans  and  in  the  tribe  of  Ben¬ 
jamin.  The  effect  was  the  same.  About  three  centuries 
later,  ‘‘Nature  gave  birth  to  a  great  warrior  among  the 


20  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


Mongols,  who,  as  the  leader  of  the  rising  race,  became  the 
conqueror  of  the  largest  dominion  a  man  has  ever  ruled.” 
(Ghenko,  supra.) 

Of  Genghis  Khan  Gibbon  relates :  “  His  birth  was  noble ; 
but  it  was  in  the  pride  of  victory  that  prince  or  people  de¬ 
duced  his  seventh  ancestor  from  the  immaculate  conception 
of  a  virgin.  His  father  had  reigned  over  thirteen  hordes 
which  composed  about  thirty  or  forty  thousand  families; 
above  two-thirds  refused  to  pay  tithes  or  obedience  to  his 
infant  son;  and  at  the  age  of  thirteen  Temugin  fought  a 
battle  against  his  rebellious  subjects.”  (Gibbon,  Chap. 
LXIV.)  It  appears,  therefore,  that  he  was  of  the  blood  of 
the  reigning  princes  to  whom  the  tribute  of  Chinese  maidens 
had  been  paid.  Timor,  better  known  as  Tamerlane,  was  of 
the  same  blood.  *  ‘  And  in  the  ascent  of  some  generations  the 
branch  of  Timor  is  confounded,  at  least  by  the  females, 
with  the  imperial  stem.”  (Gibbon,  Chap.  LXV ;  see  also  the 
footnotes.) 

It  would,  therefore,  appear  true  of  both  these  unusual 
men,  that  they  had  received  from  the  enforced  maternity  of 
the  Chinese  tribute  maidens  the  strain  of  sexual  coldness 
indispensable  to  genius.  The  mental  qualities  of  Genghis 
were  very  high,  and  were  derived  entirely  through  inherit¬ 
ance  and  not  at  all  through  environment  or  education. 
“The  reason  of  Zingis  was  not  informed  by  books;  the  Khan 
could  neither  read  nor  write.  ’  ’  But  ‘  ‘  the  Catholic  inquisitors 
of  Europe  who  defended  nonsense  by  cruelty,  might  have 
been  confounded  by  the  example  of  a  barbarian  who  antici¬ 
pated  the  lessons  of  philosophy  and  established  by  his  laws 
a  system  of  pure  theism  and  perfect  toleration.  His  first 
and  only  article  of  faith  was  the  existence  of  one  God,  the 
Author  of  all  good,  who  fills  by  his  presence  the  heavens  and 
earth,  which  he  has  created  by  his  power.”  (Gibbon,  Chap. 
LXIV.)  Gibbon  also  finds  a  singular  conformity  between 
the  religious  laws  of  Genghis  Khan  and  John  Locke. 

ii.  Here  are  three  striking  examples  of  different  races 
which,  at  different  times  and  at  widely  separated  parts  of 


THE  SELECTION  OF  MOTHERS 


21 


the  earth,  have  tried  like  experiments  undertaking  the 
selection  of  mothers  on  terms  that  avoid  adverse  individual 
selection  by  the  women  themselves.  That  is,  each  has 
effectually  prevented  cold  women  from  escaping  maternity, 
and,  through  their  posterity,  has  introduced  a  strain  of 
sexual  coldness  into  the  race.  It  is  apparent  that  this  one 
quality  and  no  other,  distinguished  these  mothers  from 
others  of  their  age  and  country.  There  is  nothing  to  show 
that  the  virgins  seized  by  the  Benjamites  were  better  than, 
or  different  from,  the  other  virgins  of  Israel.  What  evidence 
there  is  on  this  point  is  rather  to  the  contrary.  Four  hun¬ 
dred  of  these  virgins  were  from  Jabesh-gilead,  the  only  camp 
of  Israel  which  had  not  gone  into  the  war  against  Benjamin. 
For  whatever  it  is  worth,  therefore,  this  evidence  indicates 
that  the  strain  of  Jabesh-gilead  was  either  more  cowardly, 
or  was  less  aroused  at  Benjamin’s  crime,  than  the  rest  of 
Israel. 

So  with  the  Sabine  virgins  taken  by  the  Romans.  There 
is  absolutely  nothing  to  show  that  they  were  better  than  the 
other  neighboring  virgins  who  did  not  attend  the  festivities 
in  Rome  and  who  were  not  captured.  As  to  the  Roman  men, 
the  evidence  is  rather  that  they  were  worse  than  their 
neighbors.  They  were  in  such  discredit  among  the  surround¬ 
ing  populace  that  the  neighboring  peoples  refused  to  give 
daughters  to  them  for  wives;  as  the  other  tribes  of  Israel 
had  refused  to  give  their  daughters  for  wives  to  the  tribe  of 
Benjamin.  In  both  these  instances,  therefore,  there  is  no 
evidence  of  an  existing  superiority  at  the  beginning.  In 
both  instances,  several  generations  were  to  pass  before  any 
superiority  was  apparent. 

Equally  striking  is  the  example  of  the  tribute  of  Chinese 
maidens  paid  to  the  Tartar  tribes.  There  is  nothing  to  show 
that  anything  whatever  except  their  repugnance  for  their 
husbands  distinguished  these  from  other  Chinese  maidens. 
Repugnance  to  their  husbands  must  have  existed,  and  the 
quotation  from  Gibbon  shows  that  it  did  in  fact  exist.  It 
existed  in  the  case  of  the  virgins  seized  by  the  Romans;  and 


22  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


it  must  have  existed  likewise  in  the  case  of  those  seized  by 
the  Benjamites.  In  all  three  cases,  therefore,  it  is  apparent 
that  one  and  only  one  new  and  distinctive  quality  was  intro¬ 
duced  into  posterity.  That,  whereas  the  offspring  of  other 
unions  among  their  contemporaries  would  be  born  to  a  father 
and  a  mother  both  of  whom  were  animated  by  sexual  desire, 
in  these  three  groups  there  were  some  offspring  born  to  a 
father  animated  by  sexual  desire,  and  a  mother  who  felt 
sexual  repugnance.  Some  proportion  of  the  daughters  of 
such  a  union  would  inherit  the  mothers’  repugnance.  Con¬ 
ditions  were  so  established  that  for  generations  none  of  these 
daughters  could  escape  maternity.  Inevitably,  the  strain 
of  sexual  coldness  was,  through  their  posterity,  introduced 
into  the  race.  In  each  case,  the  result  was  to  augment  the 
nervous  structure  and  to  produce  some  men  of  distinguished 
genius.  The  period  of  time  which  elapsed  in  each  case 
(about  300  years)  indicates  about  the  period  necessary  to 
create  and  establish  the  type  of  sexual  coldness  among  a 
group  of  women. 

12.  The  evidence  of  these  three  examples  warrants  the 
following  conclusions.  In  each  case : 

a.  Like  causes  operated  on  a  group.  It  is  important 
to  notice  that  the  same  effect  would  not  have  been  produced 
by  a  like  cause  operating  only  on  individuals;  especially  if 
such  individuals  were  sufficiently  separated  so  that  their 
offspring  did  not  continuously  unite  in  marriage. 

b.  Adverse  individual  selection  by  women  themselves  of 
ardent  ones  for  motherhood,  and  the  colder  ones  for  sterility 
was  prevented. 

c.  The  cold  mother’s  productivity  for  her  full  child¬ 
bearing  period  was  enforced;  in  Benjamin  and  Rome  by 
monogamy,  and  in  Tartary  by  the  sexual  prowess  of  the 
Tartar  Chiefs. 

d.  Conditions  favorable  for  the  reproduction  of  cold 
women  extended  over  many  generations.  This  is  very 
important,  because,  among  primitive  people,  the  strain  of 
sexual  coldness  is  extremely  rare.  If  conditions  favorable 


THE  SELECTION  OF  MOTHERS 


23 


for  its  reproduction  continue  no  more  than  two  or  three 
generations,  it  will  soon  extinguish  itself.  In  each  of  these 
examples,  it  was  about  three  centuries  before  the  cumulative 
selection  from  continuously  favorable  conditions  was  fully 
displayed  in  posterity. 

e.  Each  group  was  sufficiently  isolated  to  prevent  for 
some  generations  the  exogamous  competition  of  ardent 
women.  The  strain  of  ardent  women  was,  of  course,  intro¬ 
duced  through  the  males  of  each  group.  Where  this  strain 
is  brought  in  by  ardent  women,  they  tend  to  reproduce 
themselves  and  their  own  strain  to  the  extermination  of  cold 
women.  Where  it  is  brought  in  by  lustful  men,  they  con¬ 
tinue  the  cold  strain  by  impressing  maternity  upon  women 
colder  than  themselves. 

f.  All  the  conditions  necessary  for  the  creation,  preser¬ 
vation,  continuation  and  increase  of  the  strain  of  sexual 
coldness  were  therefore  present  throughout  a  group  large 
enough  and  a  time  long  enough  to  allow  the  creation  of  a 
type. 

g.  In  about  three  hundred  years  in  each  case,  a  marked 
improvement  appeared.  As  would  be  expected,  the  time 
was  shorter  in  the  case  of  Rome  than  in  the  other  two  cases, 
because  it  is  apparent  that,  in  monogamous  Rome,  condi¬ 
tions  favorable  to  reproduction  of  cold  women  were  better 
than  in  the  tribe  of  Benjamin  or  in  Tartary.  In  Rome, 
these  conditions  likewise  continued  many  centuries  longer 
than  in  the  other  cases.  The  expected  superiority  of  Rome 
actually  appeared. 


CHAPTER  III 


ISRAEL 

13.  The  biblical  history  of  the  children  of  Israel  affords 
interesting  evidence  that  the  strain  of  cold  women,  as  long 
as  it  is  preserved  brings  forth  genius,  and  perishes  after 
some  generations  of  inherited  polygamy.  Noticeable  in 
Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob,  is  a  continence  unusual  in  their 
place  and  time.  Abraham,  and  Sarah,  mother  of  Israel,  were 
son  and  daughter  of  the  same  father,  and  different  mothers. 
An  inherited  strain  of  sexual  coldness  is  evident  in  both. 
In  Abraham,  it  appears  in  an  intellectuality  exalted  beyond 
its  place  and  time — particularly  in  his  conception  of  an 
invisible  God.  In  Sarah,  this  evidence  is  found  in  her  bar¬ 
renness,  and  in  the  preservation  of  her  youthful  beauty  to 
an  advanced  age — very  unusual  in  Eastern  women  of  the 
normal  ardent  type.  She  was  wooed  by  great  kings,  but  her 
heart  and  person  were  for  Abraham  alone.  Contrary  to  the 
custom  of  the  time  they  lived  in  monogamous  marriage. 
At  Sarah’s  request,  he  turned  Hagar  and  Ishmael  out  into 
the  wilderness.  Finally,  Sarah,  by  Divine  intervention  as 
both  believed,  conceived  in  her  old  age,  and  bore  Isaac,  her 
only  child.  This  only  son,  by  the  cold  Sarah,  was  chosen  for 
heir  of  Abraham  and  father  of  Israel.  All  Abraham’s  sons 
by  ardent  women — by  Hagar  the  Egyptian,  by  Keturah  and 
by  concubines — were  cast  out. 

Isaac,  forty  years  old  at  his  marriage,  found  Rebekah  his 
wife  barren.  Their  marriage  had  been  “arranged,”  not  by 
courtship,  or  even  acquaintance  between  them,  but  by 
Abraham’s  care  that  Isaac  should  not  mate  with  any  of  the 

24 


ISRAEL 


25 


daughters  of  Canaan.  For  a  great  race,  the  strain  of  sexual 
coldness  must  be  preserved.  Isaac  and  Rebekah,  like 
Abraham  and  Sarah,  lived  together  in  monogamous 
marriage. 

Like  Sarah,  Rebekah  was  partially  cold;  like  Sarah  she 
preserved  her  beauty  to  an  unusual  age,  and  after  child¬ 
birth;  (a  sure  mark  of  sexual  coldness  in  women  and  very 
rare  in  the  Orient) ;  like  Sarah,  she  conceived  but  once,  and 
then,  as  Isaac  believed,  by  Divine  intervention.  She  was 
delivered  of  twin  sons. 

Esau,  Isaac’s  favorite,  was  a  hairy  man,  evidently  revert¬ 
ing  back  to  a  primitive  type.  He  stayed  not  his  marriage 
for  the  wishes  of  his  parents,  or  for  distant  kinswomen, 
but  took  plural  wives  of  the  daughters  of  the  Hittites. 
No  sexual  coldness  there.  Jacob,  younger  twin,  but 
favorite  of  Rebekah,  preserving  hers  and  Sarah’s  strain, 
was  to  be  Israel.  He  did  not  marry  among  the  daugh¬ 
ters  of  the  land.  Going  far  away  to  his  kinsfolk,  he 
served  Laban  seven  years  for  the  daughter  he  loved,  before 
she  was  given  to  him — a  remarkable  proof  of  continence, 
for  the  place,  time  and  manner  of  life.  There  is  no  evidence 
that  Jacob  ever  sought  more  than  one  wife.  He  was  be¬ 
guiled  into  marrying  Rachel’s  elder  sister,  Leah.  And 
through  their  mutual  jealousies  each  gave  him  also  her 
handmaid.  But  in  spite  of  children  by  four  women,  the 
Biblical  account  is  consistent  with  the  belief  that  Jacob  was 
spiritually  monogamous,  loved  only  one  woman,  and,  like 
Abraham  and  Isaac,  would  have  lived  in  monogamous 
marriage  with  her  alone. 

Of  Jacob’s  four  consorts  three,  Leah,  Bilhah  and  Zilpah, 
were  ardent,  Rachel  partially  cold.  Of  the  two  concubines, 
the  evidence  is,  that  they  willingly  consented  to  their  con¬ 
cubinage.  One  of  them,  moreover,  was  guilty  of  incestuous 
adultery.  As  to  Leah,  she  conspired  with  her  father  to  be¬ 
guile  Jacob  into  an  unsought  marriage,  knowing  that  he 
loved  Rachel.  After  bearing  four  sons  to  Rachel’s  none,  she 
still  gave  Jacob  her  handmaid  for  more;  she  intrigued  with 


26  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


Rachel  for  Jacob’s  favors,  and  bought  them  with  Reuben’s 
mandrakes;  and  her  personal  description  “tender-eyed” 
corroborates  the  other  evidence  of  her  ardent  temperament. 1 

Rachel  was  of  the  type  of  Sarah  and  Rebekah.  She  was 
barren  at  first  and  conceived  only  after  Divine  intervention. 
In  her  second  child-bed  she  died.  In  a  long,  intimate  per¬ 
sonal  history  of  many  generations,  she  is  the  only  woman 
recorded  to  have  died  in  child-birth.  Clearly  a  different  type 
from  Leah  and  the  concubines. 

Leah  bore  Jacob  seven  children,  six  sons  and  a  daughter2; 
Rachel  only  two,  Joseph  and  Benjamin.  Of  Leah’s  seven 
children,  not  one  became  more  than  a  shepherd,  and  the 
incontinence  of  three  is  recorded.  Contrast  the  conduct  of 
Reuben,  Judah  and  Dinah,  offspring  of  an  ardent  mother, 
with  Joseph,  the  son  of  Rachel — all  having  the  same  father. 
In  Joseph,  are  three  generations  of  sexual  coldness.  His 
brethren  are  born  of  ardent  women.  They  are  shepherds 
in  the  field,  incontinent,  dishonest,  envious,  violent,  given 
to  rough  jokes  and  horseplay,  ill  at  a  bargain,  brave  in  a 
mob,  cowardly  alone,  the  ordinary  type  of  yokel.  Joseph, 
sold  by  them  into  slavery,  is  chaste,  honorable,  ingenious, 
successful,  executive,  a  good  business  man,  farsighted, 
forehanded,  climbing  to  the  top  of  every  position.  He  car¬ 
ried  into  Egypt  no  other  heritage  than  a  strain  of  sexual 
coldness.  And  wherever  that  strain  is  scarce,  no  other  heri¬ 
tage  is  needed  by  any  man.  He  easily  outstrips  the  sons  of 
ardent  women. 

The  dream  of  Joseph  always  comes  true.  As  it  was  four 
thousand  years  ago,  so  is  it  now — the  sons  of  Leah  bow  down 

1  With  even  a  slight  augmentation  of  the  nervous  organization, 
women’s  sexual  desires,  standardized  among  savages,  begin  the  wide 
divergence  which  is  seen  in  civilization.  In  this  differentiation,  the  more 
ardent  type  is  often  marked  by  the  “come  hither”  eye,  or  in  modem 
American  slang  “goo-goo”  eyes.  It  is  as  easily  noticeable  in  modem 
civilizations  as  on  the  plains  of  Mesopotamia,  forty  centuries  ago. 

2  Perhaps  Leah  bore  more.  Daughters  are  not  usually  mentioned  and 
we  learn  of  Dinah  only  because  of  her  incontinence.  But  we  know  that 
Rachel  bore  only  two  because  she  died  in  child-bed  with  the  second. 


ISRAEL 


27 


before  the  son  <5f  Rachel.  The  cold  woman  has  few  children, 
the  ardent  woman  many.  Sexual  coldness  promotes  in¬ 
tellectual  pre-eminence;  intellectual  pre-eminence  brings 
wealth  and  power ;  so  the  few  rule  the  many. 

14.  In  Egypt,  the  strain  of  Sarah,  Rebekah  and  Rachel 
soon  dies  out.  Bondage,  polygamy  and  hard  manual  labor 
extinguish  frigidity  in  woman  and  multiply  ardor.  After  a 
few  generations,  the  midwives  reported  to  Pharaoh:  “The 
Hebrew  women  are  not  as  the  Egyptian  women;  for  they 
are  lively,  and  are  delivered  ere  the  midwives  come  in  unto 
them.”  Then,  as  now,  the  landless  agricultural  serf  or 
laborer  breeds  naturally,  as  do  other  mammals,  through  the 
desire  of  the  female,  and  with  little  labor.  Intellectual  and 
spiritual  stagnation  results. 

Abraham,  Isaac,  Jacob  and  Joseph  were  men  of  keen  men¬ 
tality,  cunning,  adroit,  not  worsted  in  bargaining.  Though 
but  shepherds,  they  were  not  embarrassed  before  the  great; 
they  met  princes  on  equal  terms.  In  Egypt,  their  descend¬ 
ants  became  bondsmen,  servants,  making  bricks  by  tale. 
They  were  grievously  oppressed ;  and  they  became  humble, 
and  inferior  in  everything  but  numbers.  The  paternal  strain 
was  still  there.  But  the  mothers  of  this  generation  were 
ardent  women.  The  strain  of  Rachel  had  been  extinguished. 
Led  by  Moses  they  were  purged  by  hardships  in  the  wilder¬ 
ness,  where  thousands  were  slain,  and  all  the  generation 
that  left  Egypt  died.  Again  and  again  they  showed  their 
want  of  spirituality.  They  would  not  worship  an  abstrac¬ 
tion,  but  builded  a  golden  calf.  They  cried  out  to  be  restored 
to  bondage  if  only  they  could  get  back  to  the  flesh-pots  of 
Egypt.  Like  Esau  they  were  willing  to  sell  their  future  for  a 
mess  of  pottage.  Wonders  were  shown  them,  but  they  soon 
forgot  and  ever  demanded  fresh  wonders  to  believe  on  the 
Lord.  Of  the  great  majority  it  was  but  a  sorry  tale  of  the 
complete  mastery  of  the  flesh,  against  which  the  great  spirit 
of  Moses  strove  almost  in  vain, — indeed  a  graphic  portrayal 
of  helpless,  carnal,  idolatrous  mankind,  born  of  prolific, 
ardent  women. 


28  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


15.  Up  to  the  time  of  Israel’s  settlement  in  the  land  of 
Canaan,  the  point  of  chief  interest  in  its  history  is  that  cold 
women  have  appeared  as  individuals,  and  have  been  im¬ 
pressed  for  maternity,  so  that  individual  instances  of  genius 
appear.  Polygamy,  however,  prevented  the  formation  of  a 
group  of  cold  women  sufficiently  large  to  preserve  and  to 
perpetuate  their  strain  unimpaired.  Sexual  coldness  ap¬ 
pears  in  Miriam,  sister  of  Moses,  who  died  unmarried.  In 
the  land  of  Canaan,  conditions  were  more  favorable.  The 
Children  of  Israel  were  no  longer  on  rations.  Land  was 
divided  and  owned  in  severalty,  and  private  ownership  of 
property,  which  always  favors  the  strain  of  sexual  coldness, 
was  established.  As  instance  may  be  cited  Jephtha’s 
daughter,  bewailing  her  virginity;  a  little  more  ardor,  and 
less  conscience,  would  have  destroyed  it;  Samson’s  mother; 
Hannah,  mother  of  Samuel;  and  Ruth,  who  would  not  follow 
young  men,  whether  poor  or  rich,  who  refused  to  leave 
Naomi,  to  seek  another  husband,  and  who  finally  married 
the  aged  Boaz,  thereby  becoming  mother  of  Obed,  grand¬ 
mother  of  Jesse,  great-grandmother  of  David,  and  great- 
great-grandmother  of  Solomon.  The  tribe  of  Benjamin  had 
become  monogamous,  and  furnished  Israel  with  its  first 
king.  And,  that  monogamy  had  become  fairly  extended, 
may  be  inferred  from  the  last  chapter  of  Proverbs.  The 
virtuous  woman  praised  by  King  Lemuel  is  plainly  a  mon¬ 
ogamous  wife. 

16.  Thus,  civilization  up  to  the  reign  of  Solomon  had 
achieved  some  rise.  Polygamy,  which,  in  an  age  of  vigorous 
pioneers  does  not  prevent  the  impressment  of  cold  women 
for  motherhood,  became,  after  his  reign,  an  inherited  prac¬ 
tice,  along  with  inherited  wealth.  Inherited  polygamy  and 
inherited  wealth  together  furnish  to  cold  women  an  easy 
escape  from  child-bearing,  so  that  from  Solomon’s  reign  on, 
the  strain  of  sexual  coldness  was  gradually  extinguished; 
continence,  intellect,  and  spirituality  all  declined  together. 
Israel  became  abandoned  to  licentiousness.  Two  hundred 
years  after  Solomon’s  death,  Amos  accused  women  of  pros- 


ISRAEL 


29 


tituting  themselves  in  the  temple.  Isaiah  left  a  picture  of 
the  “new  woman”  as  she  appeared  to  him;  her  ornaments, 
her  gait,  her  manners,  her  vanity,  her  “stretched  forth 
neck  and  wanton  eyes.”  (Leah  again.)  At  that  period,  as, 
later,  did  the  waning  civilizations  of  Greece  and  Rome, 
Israel  produced  women  who  were  not  given  in  marriage. 
They  gave  themselves,  or  they  withheld  themselves.  And 
marriage  was  not  for  obedience,  support  or  maternity,  but 
to  avert  reproach.  “And  in  that  day  seven  women  shall 
take  hold  of  one  man,  saying,  ‘We  will  eat  our  own  bread, 
and  wear  our  own  apparel ;  only  let  us  be  called  by  thy  name, 
to  take  away  our  reproach/  ” 

So  women  began  to  propose,  and  to  take  the  initiative  in 
sexual  union.  Quickly  the  race  deteriorated.  In  the  next 
generations,  only  the  ardent  women  bore  children;  cold 
women  died  childless.  Faith,  courage,  cunning,  the  mani¬ 
festations  of  intellect,  conscience,  spirituality,  disappear. 
Soon  Isaiah’s  prophecy  was  fulfilled:  “Thy  men  shall  fall  by 
the  sword  and  thy  mighty  in  the  war.”  Israel’s  glory  had 
departed. 


CHAPTER  IV 


HELLENES 

17.  Hellenic  civilization  presents  a  wide  diversity: — 

In  point  of  time  between  the  Greeks  of  the.  Homeric  age, 
as  portrayed  in  Homer’s  poems,  and  the  Greeks  of  the  his¬ 
torical  age  which  began  some  centuries  afterward. 

The  historical  age  presents  again  a  diversity  both  of 
region  and  of  time. 

In  respect  to  region,  a  marked  contrast  is  shown  between 
the  concentration  of  intellectual  brilliance  of  Athens  and 
the  Greeks  subject  to  Attic  influence  and  customs,  and  the 
intellectual  barrenness  of  the  Asiatic  Greeks  and  the 
Spartans. 

In  respect  to  time,  there  is  shown  the  rise  of  civilization 
evidenced  by  the  Greek  spirit  of  freedom  and  independence 
and  the  intellectual  brilliance  of  the  age  of  Pericles  (which 
reached  its  zenith  in  the  minds  of  Socrates,  Plato,  Aristotle, 
and  Euclid  in  the  fifth  and  fourth  centuries  B.c.),  and  the 
subsequent  decline,  when  intellectuality,  freedom,  and 
independence  vanished,  and  the  Greeks  become  the  servile 
subjects  of  foreign  masters. 

All  these  differences  both  of  region  and  of  time  are,  upon 
inspection,  found  to  be  traceable  to  differences  in  the  in¬ 
stitutions  of  marriage  governing  the  selection  of  Greek 
mothers.  When  and  where  the  selection  of  mothers  is  such 
as  to  impress  maternity  upon  cold  women,  the  Greek  spirit 
is  augmented;  love  of  freedom  and  independence  are  dis¬ 
played  and  intellect  rises.  When  and  where  the  institutions 
of  marriage  permit  the  adverse  selection  of  ardent  women  for 
prolific  motherhood,  and  cold  women  for  sterility,  there  is 


30 


HELLENES 


3i 


neither  freedom,  nor  independence,  nor  agumentation  of 
the  intellect  or  spirit.  Observe  the  historical  evidence:- — 

18.  Homeric  Age:  There  is  an  interesting  likeness  be¬ 
tween  the  Greeks  portrayed  in  the  poems  of  Homer,  and 
the  Hebrew  patriarchs  portrayed  in  the  Book  of  Genesis. 
Homer’s  Greeks,  like  the  Hebrews,  interested  the  gods  and 
are  interested  in  the  gods.  That  is,  they  communed  partly 
with  the  spirit  and  were  not  moved  wholly  by  the  flesh.  In 
both  cases,  the  reader  becomes  acquainted  only  with  the  chief 
men  of  the  times — men  who  had  names.  Nothing  is  written 
about  the  common  people,  unnamed  and  prolific  (correspond¬ 
ing  to  the  proletariat  of  Rome) .  In  both  cases,  the  chiefs  were 
cunning,  often  unscrupulous,  gaining  their  ends  more  by  supe¬ 
rior  mental  adroitness  and  the  deception  of  others,  than  by 
brute  force  or  by  superiority  of  numbers.  They  were  a 
minority;  but  through  mental  equipment  they  became  a 
ruling  minority.  In  both  cases,  the  chiefs  were  monogam¬ 
ous  to  a  degree  unusual  for  the  place  and  time.  The  Greeks 
were,  on  the  whole,  somewhat  more  monogamous  than  the 
Hebrew  patriarchs.  King  Priam  was  the  only  polygamist 
among  all  the  chiefs  named  in  Homer.  In  both  cases,  there 
were  among  wives  and  daughters,  examples  of  unchastity 
which  husbands  and  fathers  harshly  resented.  And,  in  both 
cases,  the  sexual  coldness  of  some  women  was  evidenced  by 
their  comparative  barrenness  and  by  the  preservation  of 
their  beauty  to  a  considerable  age,  and  after  child-bearing. 

In  the  chapter  on  Israel,  this  sexual  coldness  has  been 
instanced  with  Sarah  and  Rebekah.  In  Homer,  it  also 
appears. 

“The  Homeric  families  in  general,  however,  were  small. 
Nestor,  indeed,  had  several  sons,  but  Agamemnon  had  only 
one  brother,  Menelaus,  and  one  son,  Orestes.  Menelaus 
had  only  one  son,  and  him  by  a  slave.  Hector  had  but  one 
son.  Telamonian  Ajax  and  his  Locrian  namesake  had  each 
a  half-brother,  but  no  brother  by  the  same  mother.  Achilles 
and  Diomed  had  no  brothers.  Telemachus  was  even  more 
solitary :  he  himself  was  the  only  child  of  Odysseus  and  Penel- 


32  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


ope;  Penelope  seems  to  have  had  no  brothers  and  only  one 
sister  (5  797) :  Odysseus  also  had  one  sister  (0  363)  and  no 
brother,  and  his  father  Laertes,  too,  was  an  only  son  (to 
1 17).”  (Seymour,  Life  in  the  Homeric  Age ,  Chap.  IV.) 

Neither  Odysseus  himself,  nor  his  wife,  nor  his  father  nor  his 
son,  had  any  brother.  Of  Grecian  women’s  sexual  coldness 
and  the  preservation  of  their  beauty,  to  an  advanced  age, 
Penelope  and  her  many  suitors  is  the  classic  example.  She 
was  in  all  respects  the  counterpart  of  Sarah  and  Rebekah. 

19.  It  is  plain  that,  among  the  named  men  in  Homer’s 
poems,  marriage  institutions  were  well  calculated  to  prevent 
the  adverse  selection  of  mothers.  Girls  were  married  early, 
and  the  choice  of  the  daughter’s  husband  was  made  by  her 
father.  Marriage  was  a  bargain  between  the  father  of  the 
bride  and  the  father  of  the  groom,  or  between  the  father  of 
the  bride  and  the  bride-groom  himself.  Girls  thus  given  at  a 
tender  age  in  monogamous  marriage  to  a  husband  whom 
they  obey,  do  not  escape  maternity,  unless  they  are  barren. 
Adverse  individual  selection  by  the  woman  herself,  which 
would  make  ardent  women  fruitful,  cold  ones  sterile,  does  not 
exist. 

It  is  probable  that,  in  Homer’s  time,  these  marriage  cus¬ 
toms,  which  enforced  maternity  upon  women  regardless  of 
their  individual  choice,  were  already  many  generations  old. 
In  no  other  way  is  it  possible  to  account  for  the  consider¬ 
able  degree  of  sexual  coldness  and  the  comparative  barrenness 
of  many  of  the  Homeric  women.  Like  Jacob  and  Joseph, 
Odysseus  exhibits  the  results  of  an  ancestry,  in  which  for 
some  generations  there  had  been  a  continuous  union  of 
ardent  fathers  and  cold  mothers.  Instead  of  being  descended, 
like  the  nameless  common  people  of  his  age,  from  men  and 
women  both  of  whom  were  animated  by  sexual  desire,  he 
was  descended  from  the  continuous  union  of  lustful  men 
with  cold  women ;  so  that  sexual  coldness  and  an  augmented 
nervous  organization,  were  imparted  to  him  through  his 
female  ancestry.  A  similar  thing  may  be  said  generally  of 
the  Homeric  chiefs.  They  exhibit  a  spiritual  augmentation 


HELLENES 


33 


above  the  common  herd  because  they  are  descended  from  a 
line  of  mothers  who  are  sexually  cold. 

20.  In  the  historical  period,  the  Greeks,  in  respect  to 
their  marriage  customs,  are  divisible  into  three  general 
regions : 

1 .  Asiatic  Greeks  -.—where  marriage  customs  were 
adapted  to  adverse  individual  selection  of  ardent  women 
for  marriage  and  fruitfulness,  cold  ones  for  sterility. 

2.  Sparta: — Spartan  marriage  was  not  so  perfectly 
adapted  to  adverse  individual  selection  as  in  Asia ;  but  better 
adapted  to  it  than  in  Athens. 

3.  Athens: — -and  all  the  Greeks  who  adopted  Athenian 
marriage  customs: — For  the  entire  period  up  to  about  400 
B.c.  (the  age  of  Socrates  and  Plato)  Athenian  marriage 
customs  forbade  the  sterilization  of  cold  women;  many 
ardent  women  were  sterilized  by  prostitution;  so  that 
there  was  a  favorable  selection  of  mothers  for  about  300 
years. 

The  augmentation  of  the  Greek  spirit  and  of  the  Greek 
intellect,  reached  its  zenith  in  Athens,  and  the  colonies 
where  Athenian  marriage  customs  prevailed.  The  rise  of 
intellect  in  Sparta  was  very  much  less;  and  among  the 
Asiatic  Greeks,  spiritual  and  intellectual  ascendency  was 
entirely  lacking. 

21.  As  to  the  Asiatic  Greeks,  observe  the  evidence  of 
Herodotus.  In  describing  the  tomb  of  Alyattes  in  Lydia, 
he  says:— 

“It  was  raised  by  the  joint  labour  of  the  tradesmen, 
handicraftsmen,  and  courtesans  of  Sardis,  and  had  at  the 
top  five  stone  pillars,  which  remained  to  my  day,  with  in¬ 
scriptions  cut  on  them,  showing  how  much  of  the  work  was 
done  by  each  class  of  workpeople.  It  appeared  on  measure¬ 
ment  that  the  portion  of  the  courtesans  was  the  largest. 
The  daughters  of  the  common  people  in  Lydia,  one  and  all 
pursue  this  traffic,  wishing  to  collect  money  for  their  por¬ 
tions.  They  continue  the  practice  till  they  marry;  and  are 
wont  to  contract  themselves  in  marriage.”  {History  of 
Herodotus ,  Book  I,  Chap.  XCIII.) 


VOL.  1 — 3 


34  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


The  marriage  customs  described  by  Herodotus,  are  per¬ 
fectly  adapted  to  insure  marriage  and  fruitfulness  to  ardent 
women,  and  sterility  to  cold  ones.  The  bride  does  not  bring 
ignorance  and  virginity  to  the  marriage  bed;  and  she  con¬ 
tracts  herself  in  marriage  instead  of  being  given  in  marriage 
by  her  father.  Girls  who  acquire  full  sexual  knowledge  and 
then  marry,  are  those  to  whom  sexual  union  is  not  repug¬ 
nant.  With  the  same  knowledge  and  sexual  repugnance 
they  would  remain  unmarried.  However  uncertain  individ¬ 
ual  action  may  be,  it  is  certain  that  in  the  case  of  a  group  the 
marriage  customs  of  Lydia  as  described  by  Herodotus  would 
result  in  the  adverse  individual  selection  of  mothers.  There 
was  no  augmentation  of  the  Greek  spirit  or  intellect  in  Asia. 
They  were  held  in  contempt  as  the  lowest  of  mankind. 
Manius  Acilius,  a  Roman  consul  in  the  campaign  against 
Antiochus,  told  his  soldiers  they  need  not  fear  ‘‘Syrians 
and  Asiatic  Greeks,  the  most  unsteady  of  men,  and  born  for 
slavery.”  (Livy,  xxxvi,  17,  b.c.  192.)  They  were  still 
mean  spirited  when  St.  John  the  divine  wrote  to  the  Laodi- 
ceans  * 

“I  know  thy  works,  that  thou  art  neither  cold  nor  hot: 
I  would  thou  wert  cold  or  hot.” 

“So  then  because  thou  art  lukewarm,  and  neither  cold  nor 
hot,  I  will  spue  thee  out  of  my  mouth.” 

“Because  thou  sayest,  I  am  rich,  and  increased  with 
goods,  and  have  need  of  nothing;  and  knowest  not  that 
thou  art  wretched,  and  miserable,  and  poor,  and  blind, 
and  naked.”  (Revelation  III,  15,  16,  17.) 

22.  There  were  no  Spartan  authors;  and  our  knowledge 
of  Sparta  is  derived  entirely  from  non-Spartan  sources. 
With  respect  to  their  women  and  to  the  terms  of  the  mar¬ 
riage  contract,  it  is  clear  that  Spartan  customs  influenced 
a  selection  of  mothers  not  so  unfavorable  as  those  of  Lydia, 
but  far  less  favorable  than  those  of  Athens.  The  women  of 
Sparta  were  more  independent,  both  in  person  and  property, 
than  other  Grecian  women;  they  were  much  less  subject  to 


HELLENES 


35 


the  will  of  fathers  and  husbands;  they  enjoyed  greater  free¬ 
dom  of  choice  for  contracting  marriage,  and  they  suffered 
less  restriction  after  marriage.  In  Sparta,  therefore,  unlike 
the  rest  of  Greece,  there  was  ample  opportunity  for  adverse 
individual  selection  by  women  themselves  of  the  ardent  for 
fruitfulness  and  the  frigid  for  sterility.  The  evidence  on  all 
these  points  is  summarized  in  the  following  extracts  from 
Grote’s  History  of  Greece. 

“Of  all  the  attributes  of  this  remarkable  community, 
there  is  none  more  difficult  to  make  out  clearly  than  the 
condition  and  character  of  the  Spartan  women.  Aristotle 
asserts  that  in  his  time  they  were  imperious  and  unruly, 
without  being  really  so  brave  and  useful  in  moments  of 
danger  as  other  Grecian  females ;  they  possessed  great  influ¬ 
ence  over  the  men,  and  even  exercised  much  ascendency 
over  the  course  of  public  affairs;  and  that  nearly  half  the 
landed  property  of  Laconia  had  come  to  belong  to  them. 
The  exemption  of  the  women  from  all  control  formed,  in  his 
eye,  a  pointed  contrast  with  the  rigorous  discipline  imposed 
upon  the  men, — and  a  contrast  hardly  less  pointed  with  the 
condition  of  women  in  other  Grecian  cities,  where  they  were 
habitually  confined  to  the  interior  of  the  house,  and  seldom 
appeared  in  public.  While  the  Spartan  husband  went 
through  the  hard  details  of  his  ascetic  life,  and  dined  on  the 
plainest  fare  at  the  Pheidition  or  mess,  the  wife  (it  appears) 
maintained  an  ample  and  luxurious  establishment  at  home, 
and  the  desire  to  provide  for  such  outlay  was  one  of  the 
causes  of  that  love  of  money  which  prevailed  among  men 
forbidden  to  enjoy  it  in  the  ordinary  ways.  To  explain  this 
antithesis  between  the  treatment  of  the  two  sexes  at  Sparta, 
Aristotle  was  informed  that  Lycurgus  had  tried  to  bring  the 
women  no  less  than  the  men  under  a  system  of  discipline, 
but  that  they  made  so  obstinate  a  resistance  as  to  compel 
him  to  desist. 

“Pursuant  to  these  views,  the  Spartan  damsels  under¬ 
went  a  bodily  training  analogous  to  that  of  the  Spartan 
youth — being  formally  exercised,  and  contending  with  each 
other  in  running,  wrestling,  and  boxing,  agreeably  to  the 
forms  of  the  Grecian  agones.  They  seem  to  have  worn  a 
light  tunic,  cut  open  at  the  skirts,  so  as  to  leave  the  limbs 
both  free  and  exposed  to  view — hence  Plutarch  speaks  of 
them  as  completely  uncovered,  while  other  critics  in  differ- 


36  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


ent  quarters  of  Greece  heaped  similar  reproach  upon  the 
practice,  as  if  it  had  been  perfect  nakedness. 

“Secret  intrigue  on  the  part  of  married  women  was  un¬ 
known  at  Sparta;  but  to  bring  together  the  finest  couples 
was  regarded  by  the  citizens  as  desirable,  and  by  the  law 
giver  as  a  duty.  No  personal  feeling  or  jealousy  on  the  part 
of  the  husband  found  sympathy  from  any  one — and  he  per¬ 
mitted  without  difficulty,  sometimes  actively  encouraged, 
compliances  on  the  part  of  his  wife  consistent  with  this  gen¬ 
erally  acknowledged  object.  So  far  was  such  toleration 
carried,  that  there  were  some  married  women  who  were 
recognized  mistresses  of  two  houses,  and  mothers  of  two 
distinct  families a  sort  of  bigamy  strictly  forbidden  to 
the  men.”  (Grote,  History  of  Greece ,  Part  II,  Chap. 
VI.) 

“  O.  Muller  remarks — and  the  evidence,  as  far  as  we  know 
it,  bears  him  out — that  love  marriages  and  genuine  affection 
toward  a  wife  were  more  familiar  to  Sparta  than  to  Athens ; 
though  in  the  former  marital  jealousy  was  a  sentiment 
neither  indulged  nor  recognized — while  in  the  latter,  it  was 
intense  and  universal.”  {Ibid.) 

All  the  evidence  summarized  in  the  foregoing,  points  to 
one  fact,  namely,  that,  in  Sparta,  there  was,  to  a  greater 
degree  than  elsewhere  among  the  European  Greeks,  an 
opportunity  for  women  to  exercise  the  adverse  individual 
selection  of  ardent  women  for  motherhood,  and  cold  ones 
for  sterility.  Hence  the  significance  of  the  fact  that  there 
was  no  Spartan  literature.  The  intellectual  activity  of 
Athens  and  of  all  Greeks  where  Athenian  marriage  customs 
prevailed  was  unknown  in  the  Peloponnesus.1 

“And  it  is  to  be  observed  that  the  Spartan  mind  continued 
to  be  cast  on  the  old-fashioned  scale,  and  unsusceptible  of 

1  “It  was  thus  with  Lacedonia  which,  in  the  midst  of  the  most  pro¬ 
digious  flight  to  which  the  human  soul  has  ever  risen — between  Cor¬ 
inth  and  Alexandria,  between  Syracuse  and  Miletus — has  left  us  neither 
a  poet,  a  painter,  a  philosopher,  an  historian  nor  a  savant;  barely  the 
popular  renown  of  a  kind  of  Bobillot  who,  with  his  three  hundred 
men,  met  death  in  a  mountain  pass  without  gaining  a  victory." 

(Pierre  Louys,  Aphrodite ,  Preface.) 


HELLENES 


37 


modernising  influences,  longer  than  that  of  most  other 
people  of  Greece.  The  ancient  legendary  faith,  and  devoted 
submission  to  the  Delphian  oracle,  remained  among  them 
unabated,  at  a  time  when,  various  influences  had  consider¬ 
ably  undermined  it  among  their  fellow-Hellens  and  neigh¬ 
bors.  But  though  the  unchanged  title  and  forms  of  the 
government  thus  contributed  to  its  imposing  effect,  both 
at  home  and  abroad,  the  causes  of  internal  degeneracy  were 
not  the  less  really  at  work,  in  undermining  its  efficiency.” 
(Grote,  History  of  Greece,  Part  II,  Chap.  VI.) 

Never  having  attained  the  intellectual  heights  of  the  other 
Greeks,  the  Spartans  continued  to  decline.  They  saw  their 
power  extinguished  by  the  Thebans,  under  Epaminondas; 
their  numbers  decrease,  and  their  institutions  decay;  and 
they  ended  as  the  servile  subjects  of  a  tyranny  which  they 
could  not  throw  off. 

23.  In  Athens,  the  practice  in  the  selection  of  mothers 
was  a  complete  reversal  of  that  in  Lydia;  and  the  position 
of  women  before  and  after  marriage  was  again  totally 
different  from  their  status  in  Sparta.  In  the  middle  class, 
from  which  Athenian  intellectual  brilliance  chiefly  sprang, 
marriage  customs  were  those  described  by  Xenophon 
(Economicus)  in  the  conversation  between  Socrates  and 
Ischomachus. 

“She  was  not  quite  fifteen  at  the  time  she  wedded  me  and 
during  the  whole  period  of  her  life  had  been  most  carefully 
brought  up  to  see  and  hear  as  little  as  possible,  and  to  ask 
the  fewest  questions.  At  marriage  her  whole  experience 
consisted  in  knowing  how  to  take  the  wool  and  make  a 
dress,  and  seeing  how  her  mother’s  hand-maidens  had  their 
daily  spinning  tasks  assigned  them.  And  as  regards  control 
of  appetite  and  self  indulgence,  she  had  received  the  sound¬ 
est  education,  and  that  I  take  to  be  the  most  important 
matter  in  the  bringing-up  of  man  or  woman.” 

It  is  evident  that  the  bride,  unlike  the  women  of  Lydia, 
brought  to  the  marriage  bed  both  virginity  and  ignorance; 
that  she  married  young;  that  she  had  little  will  of  her  own, 
and  was  taught  submission;  that  she  was  given  in  marriage 


38  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


by  her  father  without  exercising  her  own  choice;  and  that, 
united  by  indissoluble  monogamous  wedlock  to  a  husband 
whom  she  obeyed,  motherhood  came  to  her  not  from  her 
own  desires,  but  by  the  will  of  others.  There  was,  in  con¬ 
sequence,  no  adverse  selection  of  ardent  women  for  mother¬ 
hood,  cold  ones  for  sterility.  Propagation  was  controlled  by 
men,  and  women  were  their  obedient  instruments. 

Athenian  customs  described  by  Ischomachus  in  the  con¬ 
versation  with  Socrates,  were  old  and  long  established. 
These  conditions  made  sexual  coldness  fruitful,  and  im¬ 
parted  its  strain  to  posterity.  The  expected  augmentation 
of  the  Greek  intellect  actually  appeared.  Galton  names 
fourteen  men  of  genius  born  in  Athens  during  the  century 
from  520  to  430  B.c. 1 

The  favorable  selection  of  mothers  and  the  intellectual 
brilliance  of  the  Greeks  were  not  confined  to  Athens.  De¬ 
mosthenes,  In  behalf  of  Phormion: 

“Socrates  the  banker,  when  liberated  from  his  masters, 
just  as  this  man’s  father,  gave  his  own  wife  to  Satyrus,  who 
had  formerly  been  his  slave.  Socles  another  banker  gave 
his  wife  to  Timodemus,  who  is  still  living  but  who  was  once 
his  slave.  Not  only  in  our  state,  men  of  Athens,  do  per¬ 
sons  engaged  in  this  business  follow  this  policy,  but  also  in 
A£gina  Strymodorus  gave  his  wife  to  Hermae,  his  own 
domestic,  and  after  her  death  he  gave  his  own  daughter  to 
the  same  person.  In  fact  one  would  be  able  to  mention 
many  such  cases.” 

Here  there  is  evidence  that  women  were  married  and 
made  fruitful  regardless  of  their  own  choice,  and  that  the 

1  Statesmen  and  Commanders:  Themistocles,  Miltiades,  Aristeides, 
Cimon,  Pericles. 

Literary  and  Scientific:  Thucydides,  Socrates,  Xenophon,  Plato. 

Poets:  Aeschylus,  Sophocles,  Euripides,  Aristophanes. 

Sculptor:  Phidias. 

He  reckons  the  free  population  at  90,000,  renewed  three  times  during 
this  century,  making  270,000  of  whom  males  were  one-half,  or  135,000. 
The  proportion,  therefore,  is  one  genius  to  ten  thousand  males. 


HELLENES 


39 


custom  extended  to  many  parts  of  European  Greece  outside 
of  Athens.  It  was  a  complete  reversal  of  the  Lydian  cus¬ 
toms  described  by  Herodotus.  As  to  the  marriage  of  maid¬ 
ens  in  these  parts  of  Greece,  see  the  following  from  the 
letters  of  Alciphron,  who  represents  conditions  mainly  of  the 
fourth  century  B.c. 


Glaucippe  to  Charope 

“I  can  no  longer  contain  myself  mother,  nor  can  I  endure 
to  marry  the  young  man  from  Methymna,  the  pilot’s  son 
to  whom  my  father  betrothed  me,  since  I  saw  the  city  youth 
at  the  Oschophoria,  when  you  sent  me  to  the  city  at  the  time 
of  that  festival.  He  is  beautiful,  O  beautiful,  mother  and 
most  sweet.  He  wears  his  hair  in  curls  more  charming  than 
sea-moss;  his  smiles  are  fairer  than  the  quiet  sea,  and,  the 
blue  of  his  eyes  is  like  the  ocean  when  first  lit  up  by  the  sun’s 
rays.  His  whole  countenance — one  would  say  that  the 
Graces,  after  bathing  in  the  fount  Argaphia,  had  left  Orcho- 
menus  and  were  dancing  on  his  cheeks.  His  lips  he  had 
tinged  with  roses  taken  from  the  bosom  of  Aphrodite. 
Either  I  must  marry  him,  or  in  imitation  of  the  Lesbian 
Sappho,  will  throw  myself  from  the  promontory,  not  of 
Leucas,  but  of  Piraeus. 

Charope  to  Glaucippe 

“You  are  mad,  daughter  dear,  and  entirely  beside  your¬ 
self.  You  need  a  dose  of  hellebore,  not  the  ordinary  kind 
but  the  sort  that  comes  from  Phocian  Anticyra;  for  you 
ought  to  feel  a  maidenly  shame,  but  have  cast  off  all  modesty. 
Compose  yourself  and  thrust  from  your  mind  this  mischief. 
For  if  your  father  should  learn  a  word  of  this,  he  would 
without  a  moment’s  thought  or  hesitation  throw  you  as 
food  to  the  sea  monsters.”  (. Hellenic  Civilization ,  Botsford 
&  Sihler,  Chapter  XIV,  Section  161.) 

These  letters  show  that  the  favorable  selection  of  mothers 
has  extended  not  only  to  parts  of  Greece  outside  of  Athens, 
but  also  to  classes  of  society  below  the  rich.  Glaucippe  was 
betrothed  to  a  pilot’s  son,  implying  a  station  of  life  that  was 
not  opulent.  Her  mother’s  sharp  reply,  when  the  maiden 
seeks  to  exercise  her  own  choice  in  respect  to  her  marriage, 
is  abundant  evidence  that  far  from  Athens  and  much  below 


40  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


the  highest  classes  of  society,  the  Greeks  of  this  period  had 
adopted  marriage  customs  which  effectually  prevented  ad¬ 
verse  selection  of  ardent  women  for  motherhood  and  cold 
ones  for  sterility. 1 

24.  As  noticed  afterward  in  Roman  civilization,  there  is 
a  gradual  transfer  of  the  high  quality  of  posterity  to  the 
provinces.  Strict  marriage  customs  are  first  adopted  and 
first  laid  aside  in  the  chief  city  and  among  the  upper  classes. 
As  they  extend  to  the  provinces,  and  the  classes  below  the 
highest,  there  follows  an  augmentation  of  spirit  and  intel¬ 
lect  among  the  provincials,  and  a  corresponding  decline  in 
the  capital.  This  is  clearly  seen  in  Greece.  Athens  ceased 
to  bear  fourteen  geniuses  to  a  century,  and  Greek  intellec¬ 
tual  brilliance  was  then  displayed  by  Aristotle,  born  in 
Stagira  on  the  confines  of  Macedonia;  Euclid  of  Alexandria, 
and  Archimedes  of  Syracuse.  These  are  the  Grecian 
counterparts  of  the  great  men  born  in  the  Roman  provinces 
after  the  decline  of  the  spirit  of  the  Roman  at  home. 

In  Plato’s  time,  sexual  coldness  had  progressed  so  far 
among  the  Athenian  Greeks,  that  women  and  men  wrestled 
together  in  the  palozstra,  naked.  *  ‘  And  not  only  the  young 
women,  but  even  the  more  advanced  in  years,  in  the  same 
manner  as  the  old  men  in  the  wrestling  schools  when  they 
are  ridiculed  and  not  at  all  handsome  to  the  eye,  yet  still 


1  Herodotus  gives  the  ancestry  of  Pericles  for  seven  generations: 

I.  Andreas 

II.  Myron  •  Sicyonians. 

III.  Aristonymus  - 

IV.  Clisthenes 

V.  Agarista  (married  Megacles  an  Athenian) 

VI.  Hippocrates 

VII.  Agarista  (married  Xanthippus) 

VIII.  Pericles. 

The  marriage  of  the  first  Agarista  is  described :  Her  father  Clisthenes 
expected  to  give  her  to  Hippoclides,  but  changed  his  mind  at  the  wedding 
feast,  and  gave  her  to  Megacles.  It  is  a  fair  inference  that  for  seven 
generations  before  Pericles  Attic  marriage  had  been  of  this  character — 
a  transaction  between  father  and  son-in-law  of  which  the  bride  was  the 
subject  matter. 


HELLENES 


4i 


fond  of  the  exercise.”  “It  is  not  long  ago,”  says  Plato, 
“since  these  things  appeared  base  and  ridiculous  to  the 
Greeks,  which  are  only  so  now  to  the  most  of  the  barbar¬ 
ians,  such  as  to  see  naked  men.”  (Plato,  Republic ,  5th 
Book.)  It  is  noticeable  that,  at  this  period  of  Greek  culture, 
when  science  and  philosophy  had  reached  their  height, 
“Platonic  love”  appeared  as  a  possible  and  advantageous 
relation  between  men  and  women.  The  ideal  of  Platonic 
love  between  man  and  woman  would  be  impossible  in  a 
primitive  society  where  ardent  women  abound.  However 
imperfectly  carried  out  in  practice,  the  existence  of  the  ideal 
itself  is  strong  evidence  of  the  acquired  sexual  coldness  of 
Greek  women  in  the  time  of  Plato. 

As  in  all  other  civilizations,  the  augmentation  of  the 
nervous  organization  which  followed  compulsory  mother¬ 
hood  appeared  in  the  Greek  women  as  well  as  in  the  men. 
The  colder  women  strove  continuously  to  be  absolved  from 
repugnant  marriage  and  maternity. 

About  the  fourth  century  b.c.  there  was  in  Athens,  and 
soon  afterward  in  the  rest  of  European  Greece,  a  perceptible 
modification  of  the  ancient  marriage  customs.  Women 
obtained  new  liberty.  They  could  acquire  property,  en¬ 
joy  independence,  exercise  a  choice  with  respect  to  marriage, 
and  seek  divorce  from  unhappy  marriages.  In  place  of  the 
indissoluble  monogamous  marriage,  under  which  the  con¬ 
tinuous  pressure  of  the  husband’s  desires  imparted  fruitful¬ 
ness  to  his  wife  for  her  whole  child-bearing  period,  regardless 
of  her  own  sexual  ardor,  looser  relations  became  usual. 
“We  take  a  courtesan  for  our  pleasure,”  said  Demosthenes 
{Oration  against  Neairial)  “and  a  concubine  to  take  care  of 
us,  a  wife  to  give  us  legitimate  children  and  a  respected 
house.”  These  customs  in  Greece  had  the  effect  of  poly¬ 
gamous  marriage  elsewhere.  Cold  women  escaped  some  of 
the  pressure  to  which  they  had  been  subject  in  former 
generations.  Fewer  of  them  bore  children,  and  these  bore 
fewer  children.  Gradually  the  strain  of  sexual  coldness 
became  extinguished;  and  with  its  extinction  perished  the 


42  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


intellectual  brilliance  and  the  high  spirit  of  Greece.  From 
that  time,  the  fourth  century  b.c.,  when  this  Oration  against 
Neairial  was  delivered,  the  Greeks  became  subjects  of  other 
masters. 


CHAPTER  V 


ROME 

25.  The  rise  of  Rome,  and  the  unparalleled  extent  and 
duration  of  the  Roman  Empire,  offer  a  unique  opportunity 
for  the  study,  in  completed  groups,  of  the  causes  which 
infallibly  exalt  the  spirit  of  mankind,  and  for  submitting  to 
the  test  of  evidence  those  laws  which,  with  mathematical 
certitude,  govern  society’s  rise  and  fall.  During  the  course 
of  more  than  twenty  centuries  there  may  be  traced,  in  a 
terrain  and  climate  never  very  far  from  the  Roman  center, 
the  domination  of  the  Patrician  order;  the  decline  of  the 
Patricians,  and  the  rise  and  domination  of  lower  orders;  the 
decline  of  Rome  and  the  bestowal  of  power  upon  the 
provinces;  the  decline  of  Roman  and  provincial  paganism; 
the  rise  of  a  Christian  population  and  the  Christianization 
of  the  Empire;  the  decline  of  the  Christian  Empire,  and 
the  influx  of  barbarians;  and,  finally,  the  rise  under  Islam 
of  a  new  civilization  in  the  Western  Province  of  Spain, 
synchronously  with  an  uninterrupted  decline  of  the  old 
Christian  civilization  in  the  Eastern  Empire.  History 
confirms  unfailingly  the  mathematical  expectation  that 
each  group  rose  just  so  long  as  posterity  was  continuously 
improved  by  the  enforced  maternity  of  the  cold  women  of 
that  group,  and  that  each  group,  in  turn,  declined,  when 
domestic  usages  favored  the  extinction  of  cold  women,  and 
posterity  was  born  chiefly  or  only  to  ardent  or  willing  mothers. 

26.  During  the  period  of  civilization’s  rise,  three  forms 
of  monogamous  marriage  were  recognized  at  Rome. 

I.  When  a  woman  cohabited  with  one  man  for  the 
space  of  a  year.  This  was  called  usus. 

43 


44  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


II.  Marriage  was  a  bargain  and  sale  between  the  father 
(or  one  who  stood  in  loco  parentis)  of  the  bride,  and  the 
groom  or  the  groom’s  parents.  The  subject  matter  of  the 
transaction  was  the  bride;  and  by  her  tradition  she  passed 
from  her  father’s  to  her  husband’s  family,  house  and  rule. 
This  form  of  marriage  was  called  coemptio. 

III.  Marriage  was  a  religious  ceremony  performed  by  a 
priest.  This  marriage  was  called  confarreatio. 

The  first  form  of  marriage  was  very  easily  dissolved; 
in  fact  if  monogamous  cohabitation  did  not  continue  un¬ 
interruptedly  for  the  space  of  a  year,  there  was  no  marriage. 
Such  voluntary  union  in  trial  marriage  is  more  adapted  to 
the  sterilization  of  cold  women,  since  they  easily  escape 
repugnant  coverture.  In  this  form  of  marriage,  the 
advantages  of  monogamy  over  polygamy  are  at  their  lowest 
terms. 

The  second  form  of  marriage  described  above,  marks 
a  long  step  in  advance.  Instead  of  a  voluntary  union 
between  man  and  woman,  animated  by  like  sexual  desires,  it 
is  a  bargain  between  men,  of  which  woman  is  the  subject 
matter;  her  obedience  is  taken  for  granted,  and  her  desires 
are  not  consulted.  Instead  of  attaining  the  married  state 
only  after  twelve  months  trial,  and  when  the  bride  is  no 
longer  a  virgin,  her  status  as  wife  is  attained  immediately, 
and  by  a  ceremony  which  is  completed  while  she  is  still  a 
virgin.  Her  repugnance  to  marital  duties,  which  may 
come  with  her  later  knowledge,  cannot  dissolve  the  marriage, 
or  diminish  her  fertility.  This  form  of  Roman  marriage  is 
identical  with  the  form  of  marriage  customary  among  the 
freemen  of  Hellas  in  the  Homeric  age,  and  afterwards  in 
Germany  and  Scandinavia  for  a  period  of  many  centuries, 
covering  both  pagan  and  Christian  times.  If  it  is  strictly 
monogamous,  and  is  practiced  continually  for  many  gener¬ 
ations,  it  gives  to  posterity  the  most  favorable  selection  of 
mothers  known  to  primitive  mankind. 

The  third  form  of  marriage  had  all  the  advantages  of  the 


ROME 


45 


second,  with  the  added  advantage  of  spiritual  authority, 
because  it  was  a  religious  ceremony  performed  by  the 
intervention  of  a  priest.  Marriages  contracted  by  the  other 
forms  might  more  easily  be  dissolved ;  but  marriage  by  con - 
farreatio  required  the  same  solemnities  (. Diffarreatio )  to 
divorce  the  oarties. 

JL 

Of  these  three  forms  of  Roman  marriage,  it  may  be  said 
that  all  were  monogamous.  But  the  first  was  simply  a 
voluntary  trial  of  the  marriage  state  by  a  man  and  woman 
animated  by  like  sexual  desires,  either  of  whom  could 
within  twelve  months  withdraw  from  the  other  and  prevent 
the  marriage  from  taking  place.  In  the  second,  the  consent 
of  the  bride  was  an  act  of  obedience;  her  change  of  status 
from  single  to  married  was  completed  while  she  was  still  a 
virgin ;  there  was  usually  a  transfer  of  property ;  and  divorce, 
although  theoretically  easy  on  the  husband’s  petition,  was 
in  practice  difficult,  and,  in  fact,  unusual.  In  the  third 
form  of  marriage  the  tradition  of  the  bride  was  a  solemn 
religious  ceremony  and  divorce  was  even  more  difficult,  and 
more  unusual. 

27.  It  is  plain  that  marriage  by  confarreatio  was  best, 
and  marriage  by  usus  least  adapted  to  enforce  compulsory 
maternity  upon  cold  women.  It  would  be  expected,  then, 
that,  in  the  earliest  period  of  Roman  history,  the  difference 
between  the  orders  of  Roman  society  would  correspond  to 
the  difference  in  their  marriage  customs;  that  the  patricians, 
married  by  confarreation,  would  display  an  augmented 
nervous  organization,  and  form  a  dominant  caste;  that  the 
plebeians,  married  by  voluntary  cohabitation,  would  display 
a  lower  nervous  organization  and  would  be  servient ;  that  as 
plebeians  gradually  adopted  the  marriage  customs  of  patri¬ 
cians,  their  improving  posterity  would  attain  the  same 
spiritual  stature  and  social  rank  as  the  patricians ;  that  the 
group  which  first  abandoned  strict  marriage  customs  would 
be  the  first  to  decline;  and  that  a  general  abandonment  of 
these  customs  would  be  followed  by  a  general  decline  of  all 
the  Romans.  The  history  of  Rome  exactly  accords  with 


46  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


these  expectations.  There  is  evidence  that  marriage  by 
confarreatio  was  practiced  first  by  patricians,  and  afterward 
by  plebeians;  and  that  the  spiritual  stature  of  each  group 
rose  and  fell  in  periods  corresponding  exactly  to  those  of  its 
marriage  customs.  Observe  the  following  passage  in  the 
Annals  of  Tacitus,  describing  the  manner  of  filling  the  office 
of  High  Priest  of  Jupiter : 

“The  custom  had  been  to  name  three  patricians,  de¬ 
scended  from  a  marriage,  contracted  according  to  the  rites 
of  CONFARREATION.  Out  of  the  number  so  proposed, 
one  was  to  be  elected.  ‘But  this  mode  was  no  longer  in  use. 
The  ceremony  of  confarreation  was  grown  obsolete;  or,  if 
observed,  it  was  by  a  few  families  only.  Of  this  alteration 
many  causes  might  be  assigned ;  and  chiefly  the  inattention 
of  both  sexes  to  the  interests  of  religion.  The  ceremonies, 
it  is  true,  are  attended  with  some  difficulty;  and  for  that 
reason  they  are  fallen  into  disuse.’”  (Tacitus:  Annals , 
Book  IV,  Ch.  XVI.) 

From  this  evidence,  it  is  certain  that,  from  the  earliest 
times,  the  greatest  sanctity  and  respect  had  attached  to 
marriage  by  the  rites  of  confarreation;  and  that  this  form 
of  marriage  was,  during  this  period,  first  and  continually 
practiced  by  the  patricians.  None  but  patricians  could 
become  priests  or  augurs;  and,  after  the  expulsion  of  the 
kings,  the  office  of  consul  was  likewise  at  first  limited  to  the 
patrician  order.  As  the  High  Priest  must  be  born  of  a 
marriage  by  confarreation,  it  is  certain  that  this  was  the  rite 
of  patrician  marriage.  For  three  centuries  after  the  found¬ 
ing  of  Rome,  a  wide  gulf  separated  patricians  and  plebeians, 
and  even  intermarriage  was  forbidden.  The  very  names 
which  distinguished  the  social  orders  are  significant.  For 
the  patricians  claimed  to  derive  that  title  from  the  fact 
that  they  could  cite  a  father — implying  on  the  part  of 
plebeians  such  loose  sexual  unions  as  made  their  paternity 
uncertain.  Moreover,  from  an  early  age  there  had  been 
applied  to  the  lowest  order  of  plebeians  the  name  of  “ pro¬ 
letariat, ”  a  word  that  signified  those  who  contributed  to  the 
state  nothing  but  offspring. 


ROME 


47 


It  is  clear  that  this  describes  a  group  which  bore  children 
easily,  and  in  great  numbers — hence  a  group  containing 
ardent  and  willing  mothers,  bearing  children  with  small 
heads,  of  inferior  nervous  organization,  small  spiritual 
stature,  little  intellect  and  no  genius.  This  would 
accurately  describe  the  Roman  plebs  in  the  first  five  books  of 
Livy.  In  evil,  as  well  as  in  good,  the  patricians  of  this 
period  are  distinguished  by  high  spirit,  indomitable  will, 
and  invincible  courage,  while  the  plebs  are  often  cowardly, 
and  often  oppressed,  but  are  unable  to  shake  off  the  rule 
of  the  aristocratic  order.  During  these  years,  custom,  and, 
for  much  of  the  time,  law,  forbade  intermarriage  between 
the  patricians  and  the  plebs.  It  is  reasonable  to  infer  that 
the  strict  marriage  laws  of  Numa  were  observed  from  the 
beginning  by  the  patrician  order,  but  only  later  and  not  so 
strictly  by  the  plebeians.  The  rise  and  continual  domin¬ 
ation  of  the  patrician  order  would  result. 

28.  The  laws  of  Numa  made  marriage  monogamous; 
and,  for  many  centuries,  custom  made  it  indissoluble.  At 
twelve  or  thirteen  years  of  age,  the  Roman  virgin  was  given 
in  marriage  by  her  father  to  the  husband  whom  he  had 
chosen,  and  remained  for  the  rest  of  her  life  within  that 
husband’s  power,  subject  to  his  desires,  and  without  appeal 
from  his  rule.  Patrician  marriage  as  it  existed  for  about 
five  centuries  is  accurately  described  in  the  following 
extracts  from  Mommsen  and  Ferrero. 

“  Public  opinion  demanded  a  relentless  exercise  of  author¬ 
ity  by  fathers  against  their  children  or  by  husbands  against 
their  wives.”  (Ferrero,  Greatness  and  Decline  of  Rome , 
Vol.  I,  Chap.  I.) 

“The  individualistic  conception  of  matrimony  and  of  the 
family  attained  by  our  civilization  was  alien  to  the  Roman 
mind  which  conceived  of  these  from  an  essentially  political 
and  social  point  of  view.  The  purpose  of  marriage  was,  so  to 
speak,  exterior  to  the  pair.  ”  (Ferrero,  Women  of  the  Coesars, 
Chap.  I.) 

“Although  the  Roman  conceded  many  privileges  and 
recognized  many  rights  among  women  he  never  went  so  far 


48  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


as  to  think  that  a  woman  of  great  family  could  aspire  to  the 
right  of  choosing  her  own  husband.”  {Ibid.) 

* 1  Girls  were  taught  to  ‘  live  always  under  the  authority 
of  a  man,  whether  father,  husband,  or  guardian,  without  the 
right  to  possess  property,  not  even  a  dowry,  to  be  gentle, 
obedient,  and  chaste,  attentive  only  to  housework  and 
children.’  ”  (Ferrero,  Greatness  and  Decline  of  Rome ,  Vol.  I, 
Chap.  I.) 

“According  to  the  earlier  Roman  view,  the  woman  was  not 
capable  of  having  power  either  over  others  or  over  herself.” 
(Mommsen,  History  of  Rome ,  Bk.  I,  Chap.  V.) 

“According  to  the  old  custom,  the  married  woman  was 
subject  in  law  to  the  marital  power,  which  was  parallel 
to  the  paternal,  and  the  unmarried  woman  to  the  guardian¬ 
ship  of  her  nearest  male  agnati  which  fell  little  short  of  the 
paternal  power;  the  wife  had  no  property  of  her  own,  the 
virgin  and  widow  had  at  any  rate  no  right  of  management.” 
{Ibid.,  Bk.  Ill,  Chap.  XIII.) 

“The  wife  who  was  not  in  her  husband’s  power  was  not  a 
married  wife  but  only  passed  as  such.”  {Ibid.,  Bk.  I, 
Chap.  V.) 

“Every  marriage  concluded  in  the  usual  forms  within  this 
circle  was  valid  as  a  true  Roman  marriage,  and  conferred 
burgess-rights  on  the  children  begotten  of  it.  Whoever  was 
begotten  in  an  illegal  marriage,  or  out  of  marriage,  was 
excluded  from  the  membership  of  the  community.  ’  *  (ibid.) 

It  is  certain  therefore,  that  there  did  not  exist  that 
individual  selection  by  the  woman  herself,  which  subtracts 
sexual  coldness  from  posterity  by  permitting  cold  women  to 
remain  childless,  while  ardent  ones  became  mothers.  Hav¬ 
ing  no  voice  in  the  matter,  and  married  too  young  to 
express  a  choice,  even  if  she  had  one,  each  bride  was  given  in 
marriage  regardless  of  her  own  desires.  For  the  rest  of  her 
life  she  had  no  escape  from  the  married  state;  and  monog¬ 
amy  effectually  enforced  her  fecundity  for  the  whole  of  her 
child-bearipg  age. 

At  the  beginning  of  this  group,  the  amount  of  sexual 
coldness  was  probably  very  little.  The  marriage  system 
which  history  describes,  would  gradually  increase  it  as 
generation  followed  generation.  In  time,  the  inherited 
trace  of  sexual  coldness  in  the  daughters  of  cold  women, 


ROME 


49 


continuously  fructified  by  indissoluble  monogamy,  would 
establish  a  group  of  considerable  numbers  who  owned  a 
succession  of  two  or  more  genetrices  sexually  indifferent  or 
cold.  The  expected  result  would  be  a  marked  augmentation 
of  the  nervous  organization  of  this  group  of  Romans;  con¬ 
sequent  difficulty  and  danger  in  childbirth  as  children  with 
larger  heads  were  born;  increase  of  marital  unhappiness  as 
repugnant  conjugal  duties  were  enforced  on  wives;  an 
increase  in  the  virtues  of  continence  and  chastity  with  a  rise 
in  the  standards  of  decency  and  decorum.  In  short  the 
result  would  be  the  improvement  of  posterity,  and  the  rise  of 
civilization. 

29.  Such  being  the  effect  which  mathematical  law  would 
expect  of  Roman  marriage  on  the  Roman  group,  turn  to  the 
evidence  of  history,  and  see  the  expectation  fulfilled. 

Y.R.  250 -B.C.  500 

The  year  after,  Poplicola  was  made  consul  the  fourth 
time,  when  a  confederacy  of  the  Sabines  and  Latins  threat¬ 
ened  a  war ;  a  superstitious  fear  also  overran  the  city  on  the 
occasion  of  general  miscarriages  of  their  women,  no  single 
birth  coming  to  its  due  time.  Poplicola,  upon  consultation 
of  the  Sibylline  books,  sacrificing  to  Pluto,  and  renewing 
certain  games  commanded  by  Apollo,  restored  the  city  to 
more  cheerful  assurance  in  the  gods,  and  then  prepared 
against  the  menaces  of  men.  (Plutarch’s  Lives.  Poplicola.) 

The  evidence  of  miscarriages,  so  frequent  in  this  group  of 
mothers  as  to  be  recorded  in  Roman  annals,  shows  a  greatly 
augmented  nervous  structure  in  the  Romans. 

To  this  period  belong  the  stories  of  Lucretia;  Clcelia; 
Horatius;  Mucius;  Lucius  Brutus;  Publius  Valerius  (Publi- 
cola) ;  Coriolanus ;  the  expulsion  of  the  kings ;  the  establish¬ 
ment  of  a  republic;  the  defense  of  Rome  against  the 
Tarquins,  aided  by  the  Tuscan  power,  and  the  victory  at 
Lake  Regillus  over  the  Latins.  The  matrons  mourned 
Brutus  and  Publicola  a  whole  year,  each  “because  he  had 
been  such  a  determined  avenger  of  violated  chastity.” 


VOL.  I — 4 


50  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


Evidence  of  the  growth  of  sexual  coldness  in  the  Patrician 
group,  through  the  continued  enforcement  of  maternity 
upon  cold  women,  is  found  in  Livy’s  Book  VIII,  covering 
the  period  y.r.  423  b.c.  330. 

“The  foremost  men  in  the  state  were  being  attacked  by  the 
same  malady,  and  in  almost  every  case  with  the  same  fatal 
results.  A  maid-servant  went  to  Q.  Fabius  Maximus,  one 
of  the  curule  asdiles,  and  promised  to  reveal  the  cause  of  the 
public  mischief  if  the  government  would  guarantee  her 
against  any  danger  in  which  her  discovery  might  involve 
her.  Fabius  at  once  brought  the  matter  to  the  notice  of  the 
consuls  and  they  referred  it  to  the  senate,  who  authorized 
the  promise  of  immunity  to  be  given.  She  then  disclosed 
the  fact  that  the  State  was  suffering  through  the  crimes  of 
certain  women;  those  poisons  were  concocted  by  Roman 
matrons,  and  if  they  would  follow  her  at  once  she  promised 
that  they  should  catch  the  poisoners  in  the  act.  They 
followed  their  informant  and  actually  found  some  women 
compounding  poisonous  drugs  and  some  poisons  already 
made  up.  These  latter  were  brought  into  the  Forum,  and 
as  many  as  twenty  matrons,  at  whose  houses  they  had  been 
seized,  were  brought  up  by  the  magistrates’  officers.  Two 
of  them,  Cornelia  and  Sergia,  both  members  of  patrician 
houses,  contended  that  the  drugs  were  medicinal  prepar¬ 
ations.  The  maid-servant,  when  confronted  with  them, 
told  them  to  drink  some  that  they  might  prove  she  had 
given  false  evidence.  They  were  allowed  time  to  consult 
as  to  what  they  would  do,  and  the  bystanders  were  ordered 
to  retire  that  they  might  take  counsel  with  the  other 
matrons.  They  all  consented  to  drink  the  drugs,  and  after 
doing  so  fell  victims  to  their  own  criminal  designs.  Their 
attendants  were  instantly  arrested,  and  denounced  a  large 
number  of  matrons  as  being  guilty  of  the  same  offense,  out 
of  whom  a  hundred  and  seventy  were  found  guilty.  Up  to 
that  time  there  had  never  been  a  charge  of  poisoning  investi¬ 
gated  in  Rome.  The  whole  incident  was  regarded  as  a 
portent,  and  thought  to  be  an  act  of  madness  rather  than 
deliberate  wickedness.  In  consequence  of  the  universal 
alarm  created,  it  was  decided  to  follow  the  precedent 
recorded  in  the  annals.  During  the  secessions  of  the  plebs 
in  the  old  days  a  nail  had  been  driven  in  by  the  Dictator, 
and  by  this  act  of  expiation  men’s  minds,  disordered  by  civil 
strife,  had  been  restored  to  sanity. 


ROME 


5i 


A  resolution  was  passed  accordingly,  that  a  Dictator 
should  be  appointed  to  drive  in  the  nail.  Cnaeus  Quincti- 
lius  was  appointed  and  named  L.  Valerius  as  his  Master  of 
the  Horse.  After  the  nail  was  driven  in  they  resigned 
office.”  (Livy,  Bk.  VIII,  Chap.  XVIII). 

30.  Certain  inferences  from  this  evidence  may  be  justly 
drawn : 

a.  It  indicates  a  degree  of  marital  unhappiness  in  Rome 
at  this  period  unequalled  in  the  annals  of  any  other  state  at 
a  similar  period  of  civilization. 

In  all  periods,  to  be  sure,  there  have  appeared  individual 
cases  of  hate,  lust,  adultery  and  murder;  but  where  ardent 
and  willing  women  are  mated,  a  joint  conspiracy  to  destroy 
the  marriage  bond  by  murder  is  unknown.  The  annals  of 
the  Hebrews  covering  a  period  of  progress  similar  to  that 
attained  by  the  Romans  in  the  4th  century  B.c.,  furnishes 
an  intimate  relation  of  crimes  and  offences,  enriched  with 
anecdotes  of  various  persons  in  all  classes  of  society.  In  all 
these  annals  there  is  nothing  resembling  this  conspiracy  of 
the  Roman  matrons. 

b.  The  harshness  of  the  husbands’  rule  and  the  obe¬ 
dience  exacted  of  wives  is  not  different  in  polygamy  and 
monogamy  except  in  one  respect.  Polygamy  affords  to 
cold  women  a  possible  escape  from  repugnant  marital 
embraces.  In  monogamy  there  is  no  such  escape.  It  is  a 
reasonable  deduction  that  the  crimes  of  the  Roman  matrons 
at  this  time,  unique  in  the  annals  of  similar  stages  of 
civilization,  were  inspired  by  a  peculiar  hatred  engendered 
not  from  that  obedience  to  the  husbands’  commands,  which 
they  paid  only  in  common  with  all  wives,  but  by  the  unique 
obedience  demanded  of  them  as  the  result  of  a  monogamous 
union  into  which  they  had  been  forced  against  their  will. 
The  subjection  of  women  to  rude  husbands  in  polygamous 
marriage  is,  in  respect  to  sexual  intercourse  alone,  much  less 
than  it  is  in  monogamous  marriage. 

c.  It  is  a  reasonable  inference  that  marital  unhappiness 
in  Rome  had  reached  considerable  proportions  before  the 


52  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


date  of  the  discovery  of  this  conspiracy ;  and  that  it  extended 
to  a  much  larger  number  of  women  than  the  1 70  who  were 
actually  found  guilty  of  seeking  to  poison  their  husbands. 
Hence,  it  is  also  reasonable  to  infer  that  the  Roman  mar¬ 
riage  customs  had  at  this  period  created  an  extensive  strain 
of  sexual  coldness  among  women,  not  observable  in  any 
other  people  at  a  like  stage  of  civilization;  and  never  ob¬ 
servable  among  polygamous  people. 

d.  It  is  apparent,  therefore,  that  the  chief  difference 
between  Rome  and  the  neighboring  states  was  the  sexual 
coldness  of  the  Roman  matrons.  In  race,  climate,  and 
visible  culture  they  were  much  the  same.  But  the  Roman 
selection  of  mothers  had  created  for  Rome  a  strain  of  sexual 
coldness  unknown  to  any  of  its  contemporaries.  No 
similar  group  of  matrons,  conspiring  to  poison  their  hus¬ 
bands,  is  mentioned  in  any  of  the  annals  of  that  time  or  had 
ever  been  heard  of  in  any  neighboring  land.  The  Romans 
thought  it  a  portent ;  and  performed  the  expiatory  ceremony 
of  driving  in  a  nail.  Had  a  like  incident  occurred  at  other 
times  or  at  other  places,  this  conspiracy  would  not  have  thus 
impressed  the  Roman  mind. 

31.  History  affords  equally  satisfactory  evidence  that 
plebeians  gradually  followed  the  marriage  customs  of  the 
patricians.  It  is  convenient  to  set  this  forth  in  its  chrono¬ 
logical  order. 

Fifth  century  B.C.  ( Y.R .  310) 

Intermarriage  between  patricians  and  plebeians  was  first 
allowed,  notwithstanding  the  violent  opposition  of  the 
patricians,  who  complained  ‘'that  intercourse  between 
commons  and  patricians  might  be  made  common  after  the 
manner  of  wild  beasts.”  The  language  of  their  expostu¬ 
lation  itself  implies  a  strong  sense  on  the  part  of  the 
patricians  of  the  looseness  of  plebeian  marriage  customs. 
It  is  evident  however  that  they  had  begun  to  improve,  and 
that  the  improvement  continued. 


ROME 


53 


Fourth  century  B.C. 

Two  generations  later,  a  daughter  of  the  Fabii,  a  patri¬ 
cian  house,  was  married  to  a  distinguished  plebeian.  Led 
by  the  patrician  father-in-law  and  plebeian  son-in-law,  a 
campaign  to  have  one  of  the  consuls  elected  from  the 
plebeian  order  was  carried  on  for  ten  years,  and  was  finally 
successful.  (F.i?.  378-387) 

Third  century  B.C. 

At  the  beginning  of  this  century,  there  were  plebeians 
of  consular  and  triumphal  rank,  “to  the  completion  of 
whose  honors  nothing  was  now  wanting  but  the  offices  of 
the  priesthood  which  were  not  yet  laid  open  to  them .  ’  ’  The 
law  was  then  carried  to  make  plebeians  eligible  to  the  offices 
of  pontiff  and  augur,  and  the  first  plebeians  were  invested 
with  these  dignities  in  the  y.r.  453. 

It  is  clear  that  the  foremost  plebeians  now  practiced  the 
rite  of  marriage  by  confarreatio,  otherwise  they  would  not 
have  been  eligible  to  the  priesthood. 

Three  years  later  the  plebeian  matrons  dedicated  a 
chapel  to,  and  began  the  worship  of  the  plebeian  Goddess 
of  Chastity  (y.r.  456). 

“Several  portents  occurred  this  year  and,  with  the  view  of 
averting  them,  the  senate  passed  a  decree  that  special 
intercessions  should  be  offered  for  two  days.  The  wine 
and  incense  were  provided  at  the  public  cost,  and  both  men 
and  women  attended  the  religious  functions  in  great 
numbers.  This  time  of  special  observance  was  rendered 
memorable  by  a  quarrel  which  broke  out  amongst  the 
matrons  in  the  chapel  of  the  Patrician  Pudicitia,  which  is  in 
the  Forum  Boarium,  against  the  round  table  of  Hercules. 

“Verginia,  the  daughter  of  Aulus  Verginius,  a  patrician,  had 
married  the  plebeian  consul,  L.  Volumnius,  and  the  matrons 
excluded  her  from  their  sacred  rites  because  she  had  married 
outside  the  patriciate.  This  led  to  a  brief  altercation, 
which,  as  the  women  became  excited,  soon  blazed  up  into  a 
storm  of  passion.  Verginia  protested  with  perfect  truth 
that  she  entered  the  temple  of  Pudicitia  as  a  patrician  and  a 


54  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 

pure  woman  the  wife  of  one  man  to  whom  she  had  been 
betrothed  as  a  virgin,  and  she  had  nothing  to  be  ashamed  of 
in  her  husband  or  in  his  honourable  career  and  the  offices 
which  he  had  held.  The  effect  of  her  high-spirited  language 
was  considerably  enhanced  by  her  subsequent  action.  In 
the  Vicus  Longus,  where  she  lived,  she  shut  off  a  portion  of 
her  house,  sufficient  to  form  a  moderately  sized  chapel,  and 
set  up  an  altar  there.  She  then  called  the  plebeian  matrons 
together  and  told  them  how  unjustly  she  had  been  treated 
by  the  patrician  ladies.  ‘I  am  dedicating,’  she  said,  ‘this 
altar  to  the  Plebeian  Pudicitia,  and  I  earnestly  exhort  you 
as  matrons  to  show  the  same  spirit  of  emulation  on  the  score 
of  chastity  that  the  men  of  this  City  display  with  regard  to 
courage,  so  that  this  altar  may,  if  possible,  have  the  repu¬ 
tation  of  being  honoured  with  a  holier  observance  and  by 
purer  worshipers  than  that  of  the  patricians.’  The  ritual 
and  ceremonial  practised  at  this  altar  was  almost  identical 
with  that  at  the  older  one ;  no  matron  was  allowed  to  sacri¬ 
fice  there  whose  moral  character  was  not  well  attested,  and 
who  had  had  more  than  one  husband.  Afterwards  it  was 
polluted  by  the  presence  of  women  of  every  kind,  not 
matrons  only,  and  finally  passed  into  oblivion.”  (Livy,  Bk. 
X,  XXIII.) 

32.  The  chronology  and  causes  of  patrician  and  plebeian 
rise  in  the  Roman  state,  are  now  plain.  The  patricians 
had  long  practiced  those  marriage  customs  which  impressed 
their  cold  women  for  maternity.  The  result  was  so  to 
augment  their  nervous  organization  that  they  assumed 
the  leadership  in  Rome;  conquered  neighboring  states; 
suffered  increased  difficulty  upon  the  part  of  the  mothers 
in  bearing  children,  because  of  the  larger  heads ;  witnessed  a 
conspiracy  of  matrons  to  escape  repugnant  coverture  by 
poisoning  their  husbands;  and  imparted  such  sexual  cold¬ 
ness  to  posterity  that  a  patrician  Goddess  of  Chastity  had 
long  been  worshiped.  Three  centuries  after  the  founding 
of  Rome,  patrician  marriage  customs  had  spread  to  the 
lower  ranks  of  society;  daughters  of  patrician  houses  were 
given  as  wives  to  the  leading  plebeians;  their  posterity 
became  consuls,  triumphators,  augurs,  pontiffs;  and  one 
hundred  and  fifty  years  after  the  commencement  of  their 


ROME 


55 


intermarriage  with  patricians,  plebeian  matrons  began  the 
worship  of  the  plebeian  Goddess  of  Chastity.  At  the  end 
of  the  fourth  century  B.c.,  therefore,  the  strict  customs  of 
Roman  marriage  by  coemptio  or  confarreation,  which 
resulted  in  the  impressment  of  cold  women  for  motherhood, 
had  become  a  general  custom  in  all  orders  of  society. 

The  conspiracy  of  the  patrician  matrons  to  poison  their 
husbands,  and  the  beginning  of  the  worship  of  the  plebeian 
Pudicitia,  occurred  thirty-three  years  apart,  near  the  end 
of  the  fourth  century  B.c.  Children  born  at  this  time 
were  to  constitute  the  generation  of  fighting  men  with 
which  Rome  began  the  third  century.  It  is  from  this  date 
that  the  grandeur  of  Rome  approaches  its  height.  The 
same  book  of  Livy  which  records  the  conspiracy  of  the 
Roman  matrons  relates  also  the  changes  in  the  Roman 
military  system  and  the  new  formation  and  perfection  of 
the  Roman  legions.  In  the  century  between  b.c.  300  and 
200,  the  Romans  fought  the  third  Samnite  War,  vanquished 
the  Italian  Celts,  and  conquered  Italy;  drove  Pyrrhus  out  of 
Italy ;  and  waged  two  Punic  wars,  ending  with  the  victory 
over  Carthage  at  Zama.  They  began  the  century  a  small 
Italian  state  surrounded  by  Italian  enemies.  They  ended  it 
masters  of  Italy,  of  Sicily,  of  Sardinia,  of  Spain,  and  of  a 
part  of  Africa. 

33.  In  the  course  of  the  third  century  B.c.  the  leading 
plebeians  had  become  in  all  respects  the  equals  of  the 
proudest  patrician  families.  Every  office,  dignity,  and 
rank  was  open  to  them.  They  took  their  places  in  the 
Senate,  led  Roman  armies  in  the  field,  became  censors,  high 
priests,  and  augurs,  vowed  and  dedicated  temples  for  public 
victories,  and  devoted  themselves  for  the  public  weal.  The 
plebeian  group  itself  had  ceased  to  be  fungible.  Its  differ¬ 
entiation  created  on  the  one  hand  a  new  nobility,  vying 
with  the  old  in  rank,  honors,  and  wealth,  and  on  the  other  a 
proletariat,  the  “rabble  of  the  forum ”  which  (to  prevent  the 
elections  remaining  in  the  hands  of  the  lowest  of  the  people) 
were  purged  from  the  rest  of  the  tribes  and  thrown  into  four, 


56  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


called  the  city  tribes.  At  the  beginning  of  the  second 
century  b.c.,  the  ancient  names  .“patrician”  and  “plebe¬ 
ian”  had  become  almost  meaningless.  One  of  the  latter 
might  point  to  an  ancestry  and  honors  more  conspicuous 
than  one  of  the  former. 

It  was  during  the  second  century  B.c.  that  the  orders 
gradually  changed  places.  The  plebeian  order,  more 
numerous  and  perennially  recruited  from  its  own  proletariat 
maintained  the  position  it  had  gained.  The  patrician  order, 
less  numerous  and  without  a  proletariat  to  draw  upon, 
declined.  The  beginning  of  this  century  witnessed  the 
commanding  position  and  victories  of  Fabius  Maximus,  and 
Scipio  Africanus,  of  the  most  ancient  patrician  line.  The 
end  of  it  saw  Rome  saved  from  the  Cimbri  by  the  plebeian 
Caius  Marius,  who,  the  son  of  a  poor  laborer,  had  begun  his 
military  career  as  an  enlisted  man.  That  the  standing  of 
the  plebeians  during  this  century  remained  unchanged,  was 
due  to  the  same  factors  which  had  caused  their  rise.  These 
factors,  spreading  gradually  downward  through  a  group 
which  had  already  differentiated,  constantly  inspired  each 
stratum  of  their  descent.  So  that  an  improving  plebeian 
strain  was  continuously  rising  to  replace  declining  strains 
above.  The  point  of  real  interest  in  the  revolution  of 
Roman  society  during  this  century  is  the  decline  of  the 
patricians.  And  this,  as  would  be  expected,  was  governed 
by  mathematical  law. 

34.  At  the  beginning  of  the  second  century,  the  eman¬ 
cipation  of  women  began. 

“Women  began  to  aspire  to  independence  in  respect  to 
property,  and  getting  quit  of  the  guardianship  of  their 
agnati  by  evasive  lawyers’  expedients — particularly  through 
mock-marriages — they  took  the  management  of  their 
property  into  their  own  hands,  or,  in  the  event  of  being 
married,  sought  by  means  not  much  better,  to  withdraw 
themselves  from  the  marital  power,  which  under  the  strict 
letter  of  the  law  was  necessary.”  (Mommsen,  History  oj 
Rome ,  Bk.  Ill,  Chap.  XIII.) 


ROME 


57 


Between  200  and  170  b.c.,  according  to  Ferrero, 
“among  the  nobility,  many  women  won  a  large  measure  of 
liberty ;  they  rid  themselves  at  last  of  the  perpetual  guardian¬ 
ship  of  a  husband  and  secured  the  free  administration  of 
their  dowry.  Divorce  and  breaches  of  the  marriage  tie 
became  far  more  numerous,  while  meetings  of  the  family 
tribunal  were  now  almost  unknown.”  (Ferrero,  Greatness 
and  Decline  0}  Rome,  Vol.  I,  Chap.  II.) 

Thus,  in  this  period,  chiefly  among  the  aristocracy,  there 
occurred  changes  in  the  domestic  usages  which,  for  five 
hundred  years,  had  successfully  prevented  the  adverse 
individual  selection  of  ardent  women  for  motherhood  and  of 
cold  women  for  sterility.  Emancipated  from  the  control  of 
father  and  husband,  possessed  of  property  and  economic 
independence,  cold  women  could  now  avoid  repugnant 
coverture  and  refuse  to  become  mothers.  The  change 
undoubtedly  occurred  first  among  the  rich — especially 
among  families  of  inherited  wealth.  Not  only  is  this 
inferred  by  a  priori  reasoning — since  property  rights  would 
not  make  women  independent  where  there  was  no  property 
— but  there  is  direct  evidence  of  it.  In  b.c.  169,  the 
Senate  “resorted  to  the  extravagant  expedient  of  prohibit¬ 
ing  by  laws  the  testamentary  nomination  of  women  as 
heirs  and  even  sought  by  a  highly  arbitrary  practice  to 
deprive  women,  for  the  most  part,  of  those  collateral 
inheritances  which  fell  to  them  without  testament.” 
(Mommsen,  Bk.  Ill,  Chap.  XIII.)  The  law  was  powerless 
to  reduce  women  to  the  position  they  had  occupied  one 
hundred  years  before,  but  its  enactment  serves  to  identify 
the  class  whose  women  were  first  made  independent.  It 
was  the  old  and  rich  aristocracy. 1 

35-  The  extinction  of  a  strain  of  sexual  coldness  is 
naturally  much  more  rapid  than  its  creation.  It  is 
necessarily  created  slowly  by  the  union  of  chaste  and 
obedient  wives  with  lusty  husbands  in  permanent  mono- 

1  (The  Voconian  Law  will  be  found  in  Livy,  Bk.  XLI,  Chap.  28.) 


58  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


gamous  wedlock,  and  the  unbroken  continuation  of  such 
unions  in  the  same  group  for  several  successive  generations. 
For  five  centuries,  this  had  actually  taken  place  in  the 
Roman  patriciate.  In  all  the  period  after  the  age  of  Plato 
such  conditions  existed  nowhere  in  the  ancient  civilized 
world  except  in  Rome.  In  Rome,  after  the  emancipation  of 
women,  it  soon  disappeared  from  the  upper  classes. 
Women  no  longer  obeyed  either  father  or  husband.  The 
duties  of  motherhood  instead  of  being  assigned  to  them 
as  formerly  by  paternal  command,  and  enforced  by  virile 
power,  were  taken  up  or  laid  down  at  will.  Marriages 
became  unfruitful,  and  celibacy  common.  “Men  excused 
their  celibacy  by  referring  to  the  growing  independence 
of  women,  which  made  her  character  more  imperious, 
her  desires  more  extravagant,  and  her  selfishness  more 
capricious.”  (Ferrero,  Greatness  and  Decline  of  Rome ,  Vol. 
V,  Chap.  III.)  Wives  felt  bound  to  disobey  their  husbands 
in  order  to  avoid  the  accusation  of  vulgarity.  The  result 
was  a  profound  change  in  the  Roman  aristocracy.  From 
one  and  the  same  cause  its  numbers  decreased  and  its 
character  declined.  Its  marriage  customs  for  five  centuries 
had  diffused  among  its  women  a  strong  strain  of  sexual 
coldness.  The  first  effect  of  the  new  independence  was  that 
they  refused  motherhood,  and  so  diminished  the  numbers 
of  their  posterity.1  The  second  effect  was,  that  those  who 
became  mothers  did  so  from  desire  rather  than  from  obedi¬ 
ence,  and  so  debased  the  character  of  their  posterity.  In 

1  “Granted  that  there  were  still  large  families  in  Italy,  no  member  of 
the  little  Roman  oligarchy  which  professed  anxiety  for  the  restoration 
of  tradition,  set  any  example  of  the  kind;  Augustus  and  Agrippa  had  but 
one  daughter  respectively;  Marcus  Crassus,  the  son  of  the  millionaire 
triumvir,  had  but  one  son;  Maecenas  had  no  children,  nor  had  Lucius 
Cornelius  Balbus,  who  was  a  bachelor;  Marcus  Silanus  had  two  children, 
Messala,  Asinius  and  Statilius  Taurus  had  three.  The  families  of  seven 
or  eight  children,  once  numerous  were  no  longer  to  be  found;  men 
thought  that  their  duties  to  the  republic  had  been  fulfilled  with  a  family 
of  one  or  two,  and  many  people  attempted  to  avoid  even  this  humble 
duty.”  (Ferrero,  Greatness  and  Decline  of  Rome ,  Vol.  IV,  Chap.  IX.) 


ROME 


59 


a  few  generations,  the  descendants  of  the  patrician  order, 
bearing  the  ancient  family  names,  were  quite  changed. 
Their  ancestry  on  their  fathers’  side  was  the  same.  On 
their  mothers’  side  instead  of  being  descended  from  gener¬ 
ations  of  cold  and  obedient  women,  their  nearest  genetrices 
had  been  independent  and  had  been  inspired  only  by 
desire. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  third  century  b.c.  his  ambassador 
reported  to  Pyrrhus  that  the  Roman  senate  seemed  an 
assembly  of  kings.  At  the  beginning  of  the  second  century, 
the  emancipation  of  women  in  the  aristocracy  began  an 
adverse  selection  of  mothers.  At  the  end  of  this  century 
the  spiritual  debasement  of  the  aristocracy  was  complete. 
It  had  become  dissolute,  cowardly,  and  venal,  and  the 
African  chief  Jugurtha,  after  bribing  many  of  the  principal 
senators,  exclaimed,  “Oh  venal  city!  Doomed  to  quick 
perdition  could  but  a  purchaser  be  found!” 

‘  *  The  whole  nation  was  in  a  state  of  intellectual  and  moral 
decline,  but  especially  the  upper  classes.  The  aristocracy 
before  the  period  of  the  Gracchi  was  truly  not  over-rich  in 
talent,  and  the  benches  of  the  Senate  were  crowded  by  a 
pack  of  cowardly  and  dissolute  nobles.  Henceforward 
rancour  always,  and  terror  wherever  they  durst,  character¬ 
ized  the  government  of  the  lords  of  the  old  nobility.  In 
fact,  if  a  couple  of  centuries  earlier  the  senate  resembled  an 
assembly  of  kings,  these  their  successors  played  not  ill  the 
part  of  princes.  But  the  incapacity  of  these  restored 
aristocrats  was  fully  equalled  by  their  political  and  moral 
worthlessness.  If  the  state  of  religion,  to  which  we  shall 
revert,  did  not  present  a  faithful  reflection  of  the  wild 
dissoluteness  of  this  epoch,  and  if  the  external  history 
ot  the  period  did  not  exhibit  the  utter  depravity  of  the 
Roman  nobles  as  one  of  its  most  essential  elements,  the 
horrible  crimes,  which  came  to  light  in  rapid  succession 
among  the  highest  circles  of  Rome,  would  alone  suffice  to 
indicate  their  character.”  (Mommsen,  History  of  Rome , 
Bk.  IV,  Chap.  IV.) 

“Certainly  all  the  evils  of  the  government  were  therein 
brought  to  light  in  all  their  nakedness;  it  was  now  not 


60  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


merely  notorious  but,  so  to  speak,  judicially  established 
that  among  the  governing  lords  of  Rome  everything  was 
treated  as  venal — the  treaty  of  peace  and  the  right  of 
intercession,  the  rampart  of  the  camp  and  the  life  of  the 
soldier ;  the  African  had  said  no  more  than  the  simple  truth, 
when  on  his  departure  from  Rome  he  declared  that,  if  he 
had  only  gold  enough,  he  would  undertake  to  buy  the  city 
itself.  But  the  whole  external  and  internal  government  of 
his  period  bore  the  same  stamp  of  miserable  baseness.” 
{Ibid.) 

At  this  period  the  patricians  in  Rome  had  become  miser¬ 
able,  crawling,  worthless  wretches.  It  was  the  common 
people  who  felt  the  inspiration  and  lived  up  to  the  ancient 
name  of  Rome. 

“Public  opinion  in  Italy  was  vehemently  aroused  against 
the  equally  corrupt  and  pernicious  governing  aristocracy 
and  broke  out  in  a  storm  of  prosecutions  which,  fostered  by 
the  exasperation  of  the  mercantile  class,  swept  away  a 
section  of  victims  from  the  highest  circles  of  the  nobility.” 
{Ibid.) 

36.  The  decline  of  the  patrician  order,  which  began 
during  the  second  century  B.c.  from  a  change  in  the  selection 
of  mothers,  continued  to  be  not  only  uninterrupted,  but 
even  accelerated  in  the  first  century.  Corruption,  treach¬ 
ery,  violence,  murder,  civil  war,  proscription,  and  con¬ 
fiscation,  fill  history’s  pages  during  this  era.  Three  times 
the  senate  was  purged.  In  b.c.  115,  thirty-two  senators 
were  expelled ;  in  b  .c.  8 1 ,  most  of  its  members  having  perished, 
the  senate  was  filled  from  the  equestrian  order;  and  in  b.c. 
69,  sixty  four  senators  were  expelled.  But  in  a  continually 
declining  posterity  temporal  remedies  are  of  no  avail. 
Each  successive  generation  is  worse  than  its  progenitors. 
The  Republic  was  destroyed  and  was  followed  by  a  dictator¬ 
ship;  after  the  dictator  came  a  triumvirate  who  parcelled 
out  between  themselves  the  Roman  world;  and  the  trium¬ 
virate  was  followed  by  an  imperator,  sealing  the  Republic’s 
doom.  The  old  nobility  became  abject,  servile,  Asiatic; 


ROME 


61 


and  Asiatic  relations  between  rulers  and  ruled  appear.  The 
sense  of  private  property,  and  the  rights  of  persons  and 
property  as  against  the  state,  were  lost.  Agrarian  laws 
were  passed,  and  were  succeeded  by  enormous  seizures 
and  confiscations,  which  swept  private  fortunes  out  of 
existence.  Men  held  their  lives  and  their  property  at  the 
ruler’s  will.  Invisible  deities  were  no  longer  worshiped, 
and  instead  of  temples  to  Chastity,  Piety,  Virtue,  Courage, 
and  Fear,  statues  of  Csesar  and  Augustus  were  solemnly 
dedicated  to  public  worship,  and  they,  themselves,  deified 
and  elected  to  heaven  by  a  formal  vote.1 

It  would  be  expected  that  history  recording  so  complete 
a  reversal  in  the  character  of  the  Roman  aristocracy,  would 
record  in  their  marriage  customs  a  reversal  equally  complete. 
This  expectation  is  exactly  fulfilled.  The  ancient  forms  of 
marriage  that  distinguished  patricians  and  plebeians  may 
still  be  traced :  but  now  patricians  had  adopted  the  marriage 
customs  of  the  proletariat.2  Wedlock  became  simply  the 
voluntary  union  of  man  and  woman  animated  by  the  same 

1  “Caesar  allowed  honours  to  be  bestowed  on  him  which  were  too 
great  for  mortal  man ;  a  golden  throne  in  the  House  and  the  judgment 
seat;  a  chariot  and  litter  (for  carrying  his  statue  among  those  of  the 
gods)  in  the  procession  at  the  circus ;  a  special  priest,  and  an  additional 
college  of  the  Luperci,  and  the  calling  of  one  of  the  months  by  his 
name.” 

“He  died  in  the  fifty-sixth  year  of  his  age,  and  was  numbered  among 
the  gods,  not  only  by  a  formal  decree,  but  also  in  the  conviction  of  the 
vulgar.”  (Suetonius,  Julius  Ccesar  {Lives  of  the  Ccesars),  Bk.  I,  LXXVI, 
LXXXVIII.) 

*  “Among  the  proletariat  free  love  has  never  been  regarded  as  sinful. 
Where  there  is  no  property  which  is  capable  of  being  left  to  a  legitimate 
heir,  where  the  appeal  of  the  heart  draws  man  and  woman  together, 
from  the  very  earliest  times  people  have  troubled  themselves  little 
about  the  blessing  of  the  priest ;  and  had  it  not  been  that  at  the  present 
day  the  civil  form  of  marriage  is  so  simple,  whilst,  on  the  other  hand, 
there  are  so  many  difficulties  placed  in  the  path  of  unmarried  mothers 
and  illegitimate  children,  who  can  tell  if  the  modern  proletariat  would  not 
long  ago,  as  far  as  they  themselves  are  concerned,  have  abolished  mar¬ 
riage?”  (A.  Blaschko,  Prostitution  in  the  Nineteenth  Century ,  Berlin, 
1902.) 


62  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


desires,  continued  during  their  mutual  pleasure,  and  dis¬ 
solved  at  will. 

“Amid  these  painted  Graces  no  refuge  could  be  found 
for  the  traditional  love,  which  was  merely  the  civic  duty 
of  perpetuating  the  race  in  lawful  wedlock;  they  would 
harmonize  only  with  the  new  love,  the  love  of  intellectual 
civilisation  refined  by  a  thousand  artifices,  which  was 
nothing  more  than  the  selfish  enjoyment  of  mind  and  body. 
In  these  magnificent  dwellings  was  concluded  an  evolution 
which  had  transformed  the  family  within  four  centuries 
and  changed  the  strength  and  rigidity  of  a  despotic  organ¬ 
isation  into  the  freest  form  of  sexual  union  ever  seen  in 
western  civilisation,  comparable  rather  to  that  free  love 
which  some  modem  socialists  regard  as  the  marriage  of  the 
future.  Rites  and  formalities  were  no  longer  necessary; 
marriage  depended  upon  mutual  consent,  a  certain  level  of 
moral  dignity,  and,  in  Roman  phrase,  upon  ‘marital 
affection’;  it  could  be  dissolved  for  incompatibility  of 
temper,  mutual  indifference  or  unworthy  conduct.  The 
only  outward  and  visible  sign  of  the  union,  though  even  this 
was  rather  a  matter  of  habit  than  a  legal  necessity,  was  the 
dowry.  If  a  man  took  a  free  woman  of  honourable  family 
to  live  with  him,  the  act  made  them  man  and  wife  and  their 
children  legitimate ;  if  the  marriage  state  proved  displeasing, 
they  separated  and  the  marriage  was  dissolved.  Such,  in  its 
essential  features,  was  marriage  in  the  age  of  Augustus. 
Henceforward  in  the  family  the  woman  was  almost  entirely 
free  and  equal  to  the  man.  Of  her  old  eternal  tutelage 
nothing  remained  but  her  obligation  to  be  supported  by 
a  guardian  when  she  had  no  father  or  husband  and  wished 
to  make  a  contract  or  a  will,  to  begin  a  lawsuit  or  sell  a 
res  mancipi.  Considered  as  such,  there  was  a  certain 
grandeur  and  nobility  in  this  form  of  marriage;  but  it 
marked  the  downfall  of  family  life,  since  the  women  of  the 
upper  classes  had  lost  the  old  feminine  virtues  of  modesty, 
obedience,  industry  and  self-respect.”  (Ferrero,  Greatness 
and  Decline  of  Rome,  Vol.  IV,  Chap.  IX.) 

37.  If  the  general  decline  in  the  Roman  patriciate  was 
due  to  a  general  change  in  the  selection  of  patrician  mothers, 
then  it  would  be  expected  that  in  families  where  the  change 
did  not  take  place  the  decline  would  not  appear.  Gene- 


ROME 


63 


trices  of  the  old-fashioned  type  would  still  bear  Romans  of 
the  ancient  spiritual  stature;  and,  as  the  strain  of  sexual 
coldness  was  carried  through  additional  generations  of 
mothers,  their  descendants  should  show  a  nervous  organi¬ 
zation  even  more  augmented,  and  genius  in  these  families 
should  rise  higher  than  before.  The  lives  and  character  of 
Julius  Cassar  and  of  Octavianus,  his  nephew,  fulfill  this 
expectation. 

There  is  evidence  that  the  mother  of  Julius  Cassar  was  of 
the  old-fashioned  type,  and  adhered  to  the  old  ideals  of 
obedience. 

“In  many  of  the  noble  houses  there  were  still  Roman 
matrons,  like  the  mother  of  Cassar,  who  lived  in  a  primitive 
and  old-world  simplicity,  even  preferring  to  keep  up  the 
old-fashioned  pronunciation  of  Latin,  which  had  long  ago 
become  clipped  and  vulgarized  by  the  cosmopolitan  chatter 
of  the  tavern  and  the  market  place.”  (Ferrero,  Ibid.,  Vol.  I, 
Chap.  VII.) 

“So  long  as  he  lived  he  cherished  the  purest  veneration  for 
his  worthy  mother,  Aurelia  (his  father  having  died  early).” 
(Mommsen,  Bk.  V,  Chap.  II.) 

He  was  the  highest  nervous  organism,  therefore  the 
greatest  genius,  that  the  Roman  patriciate  produced. 
Octavianus  was  descended  on  his  father’s  side  from  plebeian 
blood,  his  grandfather  having  been  a  usurer  at  Velletri;  but, 
on  his  mother’s  side  he  seems  to  have  descended  by  uninter¬ 
rupted  female  descent  from  the  ancient  patrician  strain,  un¬ 
impaired  by  the  corruption  of  sexual  desire.  His  mother 
was  the  niece,  his  grandmother  the  sister,  and  his  great¬ 
grandmother  the  mother  of  Julius  Cassar.  There  is  evidence 
that  he  inherited  the  superior  nervous  structure  noticeable 
in  the  descendants  of  cold  women;  and  that  amid  the  riot 
of  wealth  and  luxury  which  prevailed  in  Rome  he  preserved 
puritanical  ideals,  ancient  virtuesv  frugal  habits  and  the 
best  traditions  of  the  old  Roman  aristocracy.  This  evi¬ 
dence  may  be  found  in  the  following  extracts  from  Ferrero : 


64  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


“Octavianus  seems  to  have  been  seized  with  a  transport  of 
madness  marked  by  alternating  fits  of  mildness  and  ferocity. 
Nor  is  the  fact  difficult  to  explain  in  the  case  of  a  young  man 
unused  to  violent  scenes.  From  an  early  age  he  had  been  one 
of  those  nervous  and  delicate  children  brought  forth  by  a 
corrupt,  refined  and  exhausted  civilization;  his  health 
was  sickly  and  feeble,  his  intelligence  precocious,  and  his 
mother  and  grandmother  had  watched  over  him  with  most 
careful  attention.  At  the  age  of  thirteen,  he  had  been 
regarded  as  a  prodigy  of  learning  and  had  even  made  a 
speech  in  public ;  so  he  quickly  developed  into  a  thoughtful 
and  studious  young  man,  careful  of  his  health,  drinking 
little  wine,  and  unwilling  to  leave  his  books  and  his  favour¬ 
ite  teachers,  Athenodorus  of  Tarsus  and  Didymus  Areus.” 
(Ferrero,  Greatness  and  Decline  of  Rome,  Vol.  Ill,  Chap.  XI.) 

Of  these  twelve  children,  the  first  nine  of  pure  Roman 
blood,  had  already  been  subjected  by  Augustus  to  the 
traditional  course  of  education;  the  girls  went  to  the  loom 
and  the  boys  to  war  from  an  early  age.  Though  they  were 
carefully  instructed,  both  boys  and  girls,  in  literature  and 
philosophy,  the  princeps  declined  to  wear  any  tog®  except 
those  woven  in  his  own  house  by  his  own  women,  according 
to  the  practice  of  the  great  lords  in  the  aristocratic  period.” 
{Ibid.,  Vol.  IV,  Chap.  IX.) 

“Augustus  was  urged  to  pass  laws  against  luxury,  im¬ 
morality  and  celibacy,  and  to  re-establish  the  traditional 
supervision  of  private  morality,  which  had  long  been 
entrusted  to  the  censors  by  the  aristocracy.  But  theory  on 
this  subject  was  easier  than  practice.  Augustus  was  him¬ 
self  fully  inclined  to  satisfy  the  new  puritans.  As  we  should 
now  say,  he  was  a  thorough  traditional  conservative  by 
character  and  training ;  he  preferred  simplicity  and  economy 
to  luxury  and  extravagance;  he  was  an  admirer  of  Cicero, 
brought  up  in  a  middle-class  family,  and  had  lived  among 
that  section  of  the  Roman  aristocracy  where  ancient 
traditions  had  been  best  preserved.  To  one  of  these  families 
his  wife,  Livia,  also  belonged,  and  her  influence  over  him 
was  always  very  great.”  {Ibid.,  Chap.  VIII.) 

Such  evidence  warrants  the  inference  that,  where  the 
character  of  mothers  did  not  change,  their  sons  remained 


ROME 


65 


unimpaired.  Neither  power,  wealth  nor  luxury  could 
overthrow  the  solid  character  of  Romans  who  were  still 
descended  from  saintly  mothers. 

38.  The  last  decades  of  patrician  rule  were  marked  by 
the  contest  for  supremacy  between  the  Julian  and  Claudian 
families.  The  last  of  the  patrician  emperors  was  Nero. 
At  his  death,  in  the  first  century  a.d.,  the  cycle  of  the 
ancient  patrician  group  was  complete.  In  the  course  of 
eight  hundred  years,  six  centuries  had  seen  its  rise  by  the 
continuous  improvement  of  each  generation  of  its  posterity 
through  the  honorable  conscription  of  its  cold  women  for 
maternity.  Two  centuries  saw  this  conscription  cease, 
and  the  patrician  order  fall.  Long  before  Nero’s  time  they 
had  ceased  to  rule  as  a  group,  but  still  furnished  Rome 
with  individual  rulers.  After  Nero,  the  sceptre  passed 
altogether.  Neither  as  a  group,  nor  individually,  did  any 
patrician  wield  again  the  imperial  power.  Future  emperors 
rose  from  other  classes  of  society,  and  from  other  parts  of 
the  empire.  The  downfall  and  complete  destruction  of  the 
Roman  patriciate,  had  followed  inevitably  the  adverse 
selection  of  its  women  for  motherhood. 

39.  While  the  women  of  the  patrician  order,  emanci¬ 
pated  and  independent,  were  refusing  compulsory 
motherhood,  and,  gradually,  were  adopting  the  free  mar¬ 
riage  customs  of  the  proletariat,  the  Roman  middle  class 
preserved  its  ancient  virtues,  and  the  ancient  forms  of 
Roman  marriage  which  made  their  cold  women  fruitful. 
In  the  second  century  b.c.  the  causes  which  corrupted  the 
aristocracy  had  not  yet  attacked  this  middle  class. 

“It  is  true  that  those  plebeians  who  remained  in  the 
country  still  lived  a  sober  and  honourable  family  life,  after 
the  manner  of  their  fathers,  respecting,  with  equal  sim¬ 
plicity,  the  nobility  and  the  law.’’  (Ferrero,  Greatness  and 
Decline  of  Rome,  Vol.  I,  Chap.  II.) 

This  class  furnished  the  new  leaders ;  and,  rising  rapidly  to 
power,  supplanted  the  old  aristocracy.  From  the  middle  of 

VOL.  1— s 


66  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


the  second  century  B.c.,  the  patrician  order  continuously 
declined,  while  the  plebeian  group  continuously  advanced. 
Plutarch  relates  that  Appius  Claudius,  of  the  proudest 
patrician  family,  seeking  a  husband  for  his  daughter,  chose 
Tiberius  Gracchus,  of  a  plebeian  gens ,  as  the  best  young  man 
in  Rome.  In  b.c.  131  there  were  elected  two  plebeian 
censors,  something  that  had  never  happened  before.  Near 
the  end  of  this  century  when  the  patrician  senate  had 
become  corrupt,  worthless,  and  thirty-two  senators  had 
been  expelled,  the  ancient  Roman  spirit  was  still  displayed 
by  the  middle  class.  They  prosecuted  and  punished  the 
venal  senators,  carried  on  the  African  war,  and  Jugurtha 
was  finally  vanquished  and  captured  by  the  plebeian  Caius 
Marius.  At  the  close  of  the  century,  this  same  Caius 
Marius  defeated  and  triumphed  over  the  Cimbri,  a  vast 
host  that  had  threatened  the  safety  of  Rome  itself.  “The 
principal  men  in  the  state,  who  were  for  some  time  ex¬ 
tremely  envious  that  such  distinction  should  be  conferred 
upon  a  man  of  no  family,  now  acknowledge  him  to  have 
saved  the  commonwealth.”1 

In  the  next  twenty  years,  the  ancient  aristocracy  was 
nearly  destroyed  by  civil  wars,  their  property  was  seized 
and  sold,  and,  in  b.c.  81,  the  senate  was  filled  up  from  the 
equestrian  order.  In  the  same  year,  Cneius  Pompeius 
triumphed  over  Africa,  “although  no  more  than  twenty- 
four  years  of  age  and  only  of  equestrian  rank,  which  never 
happened  to  any  man  before.”  This  was  Pompey  the 
Great;  and  it  is  worth  mention  that,  in  the  wars  and  politics 
of  the  first  century  B.c.,  the  great  figures  are  men  of  new 
family  risen  from  below,  not  descended  from  the  ancient 

1  “He  was  bom  of  parents  altogether  obscure  and  indigent,  who 
supported  themselves  by  their  daily  labour;  his  father  of  the  same  name 
with  himself,  his  mother  called  Fulcinda.  He  had  spent  a  considerable 
part  of  his  life  before  he  saw  and  tasted  the  pleasures  of  the  city ;  having 
passed  previously  in  Cirrhseaton,  a  village  of  the  territory  of  Arpinum,  a 
life,  compared  with  city  delicacies,  rude  and  unrefined,  yet  temperate, 
and  conformable  to  the  ancient  Roman  severity.”  (Plutarch’s  Lives, 
Caius  Marius.) 


ROME 


6  7 


aristocracy.  Ventidius,  another  plebeian,  was  the  only 
man  that  had  yet  triumphed  for  victories  obtained  over 
the  Parthians.1 

Dio’s  Roman  History  declares  that  Augustus  “feared 
that  Maecenas,  to  whom  on  this  occasion  also  Rome  and  the 
rest  of  Italy  had  been  entrusted,  would  be  despised  by 
them  inasmuch  as  he  was  only  a  knight.”  The  knights 
were  the  highest  order  of  the  people  below  the  patricians, 
so  that  this  sentence  furnishes  evidence  first,  that  the 
people  were  accustomed  by  tradition  to  look  up  with  con¬ 
fidence  and  respect  to  the  rule  of  the  patrician  order,  and 
second  that,  by  the  time  of  Augustus,  the  leadership  had 
passed  from  that  order  to  the  knights. 

40.  No  less  notable  than  the  rise  of  leading  plebeians  to 
command,  is  the  improvement  of  the  Roman  common 
soldier.  He  was  still  drawn  from  Italy,  was  born  of  the 
ancient  marriage  customs,  and  either  of  Roman  or  Latin 
stock.  In  the  first  century  B.C.,  he  fought  over  a  wider 
area  of  the  globe  and  against  more  varied  enemies  than 
ever  before.  His  conquests  carried  him  to  the  farthest 
limits  of  Gaul  and  Spain;  he  triumphed  over  Africa  and 
Egypt;  he  subdued  all  Asia  to  the  Euphrates,  and  defeated 
the  Parthians  beyond  that  river.  The  Roman  legions  were 
still  Roman  in  fact  as  well  as  in  name,  and  their  prowess 
was  never  so  great.  On  all  sides,  they  contended  with 
a  polygamous  people  whose  unfavorable  selection  of  mothers 
had  debased  their  spirit.  It  is  evident  that  the  Roman 
common  soldier  of  this  day  had  not  suffered  the  decline 
which  had  overtaken  the  patrician  order.  Through  Mace- 
don  and  Armenia  these  Roman  common  soldiers  marched 
to  the  shores  of  the  Euxine  and  the  banks  of  the  Euphrates, 

1  “He  was  of  obscure  birth,  but,  by  means  of  Antony’s  friendship, 
obtained  an  opportunity  of  showing  his  capacity,  and  doing  great  things; 
and  his  making  such  glorious  use  of  it  gave  new  credit  to  the  current 
observation  about  Caesar  and  Antony,  that  they  were  more  fortunate  in 
what  they  did  by  their  lieutenants  than  in  their  own  persons.” 
(Plutarch’s  Lives ,  Antony.) 


68  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


enduring  every  hardship,  traversing  mountains  and  crossing 
rivers,  invariably  mastering  every  difficulty  of  the  country 
itself,  and  beating  an  enemy  of  enormously  greater  numbers. 
At  the  battle  of  Chaeronea,  Sulla,  commanding  a  Roman 
army  of  less  than  fifteen  thousand  foot  and  not  above  fif¬ 
teen  hundred  horse,  completely  defeated  Archelaus  at  the 
head  of  a  mixed  army  of  one  hundred  and  twenty  thousand 
men.  Only  ten  thousand  of  the  Asiatics  escaped  while  Sulla 
wrote  that  there  were  but  fourteen  of  his  soldiers  missing, 
and  that  two  of  these  returned  towards  evening. 

A  still  greater  victory  followed  at  Tigranocerta  (about 
Bitlis),  in  b.c.  69.  There,  a  small  Roman  force,  not  much 
more  than  10,000  men,  4 ‘too  many  for  an  embassy,  too  few 
for  an  army,”  met  an  immense  host  twenty  times  their  num¬ 
ber,  and  completely  defeated  them.  The  bulletin  of  the 
Roman  general,  Lucullus,  announced  that  100,000  Armen¬ 
ians,  and  five  Romans  had  fallen.  Pompey  was  equally 
successful.  He  triumphed  successively  over  Africa,  Europe, 
and  Asia ;  and  on  his  third  triumph  there  were  inscribed  the 
names  and  titles  of  the  vanquished  nations — Pontus,  Ar¬ 
menia,  Cappadocia,  Paphlagonia,  Media,  Colchis,  the 
Iberians,  the  Albanians,  Syria,  Cilicia,  and  Mesopotamia, 
together  with  Phoenicia,  and  Palestine,  Judaea,  Arabia,  and 
all  the  power  of  the  pirates  subdued  by  sea  and  land.  (Plu¬ 
tarch’s  Lives ,  Pompey.)  Caesar’s  victories  in  Gaul  were  no 
less  striking.  He  had  few  legions  but  his  soldiers  fought 
with  more  than  human  corn-age. 

“For  he  had  not  pursued  the  wars  in  Gaul  full  ten  years 
when  he  had  taken  by  storm  above  eight  hundred  towns, 
subdued  three  hundred  states  and  of  the  three  millions  of 
men,  who  made  up  the  gross  sum  of  those  with  whom  at 
several  times  he  engaged,  he  had  killed  one  million  and  taken 
captive  a  second.”  (Plutarch’s  Lives ,  Caesar.) 

These  enormous  conquests  under  Sulla,  Lucullus,  Pompey, 
and  Caesar,  were  all  achieved  in  the  first  half  of  the  first 
century  B.c.  In  this  period,  Italy  was  torn  by  civil  wars, 


ROME 


69 


the  ancient  patriciate  was  destroyed,  its  fortunes  seized, 
and  its  lives  proscribed.  The  common  people  of  Rome  and 
Italy  still  filled  the  Roman  legions,  their  officers  were  of 
equestrian  rank,  and  they  were  usually  commanded  by  men 
of  obscure  birth.  Their  continuous  victories  on  three  con¬ 
tinents  against  overwhelming  odds  furnish  ample  testimony 
of  the  corporeal  and  spiritual  prowess  engendered  by 
centuries  of  the  Roman  selection  of  mothers. 

41.  By  the  middle  of  the  first  century  B.C.,  the  spiritual 
stature  of  the  Roman  plebeian  group  had  reached  its  height. 
Its  leading  families  displayed  evidences  of  augmented 
nervous  organization  exactly  similar  to  those  of  the  pa¬ 
tricians  two  centuries  earlier;  and  these  characteristics 
arose  from  the  same  causes.  Leading  plebeians  formed  a 
new  aristocracy,  commanded  the  State,  subdued  distant 
provinces,  and  rapidly  gained  enormous  wealth.  Mean¬ 
while  their  women  died  in  child-bed,  their  marriages  were 
unhappy,  and  divorce  became  frequent. 

Until  the  reign  of  Augustus,  the  decline  of  aristocratic 
families  from  these  causes  was  continuously  made  good  by 
the  rise  of  new  stirpes  from  below.  The  plebeian  order  had 
always  its  proletariat  to  draw  upon,  and  for  three  centuries 
the  Roman  proletariat  had  been  continuously  rising. 
During  the  reign  of  Augustus  it  began  its  decline.  It  had 
been  the  ancient  custom  to  award  conquered  lands  to  the 
Roman  veterans,  and,  not  only  throughout  Italy,  but  in 
Gaul  and  Spain,  colonies  had  been  established  where  the 
Roman  commons  could,  by  incessant  labor,  wrest  a  liveli¬ 
hood  from  their  ancestral  acres.  The  distribution  of  lands 
created  a  hardy  and  industrious  poor;  since  by  no  industry 
could  the  possessor  of  fifteen  acres  become  rich;  yet  by 
idleness  he  might  suffer  want.  For  a  century,  a  smaller 
class,  ‘The  rabble  of  the  forum,”  had  been  growing  up  in 
idleness  in  Rome,  depending  upon  the  largesse  of  candidates 
who  sought  their  votes.  Augustus  tried  to  stop  election 
bribery;  but  he  also  established  and  carried  out  the  dis¬ 
tribution  of  grain  to  the  urban  proletariat.  Want  had  been 


70  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


often  relieved  before,  but  the  occasional  generosity  of  an 
office  seeker  could  not  furnish  permanent  support  to  an 
increasing  multitude  of  dependants.  Augustus  made  the 
support  of  the  Roman  poor  an  obligation  of  the  Roman 
state.  He  attempted  to  regulate  the  practice  with  no  less 
regard  for  the  interests  of  the  farmers  and  grain  dealers,  than 
for  those  of  the  populace.  “I  was  strongly  inclined  to  do 
away  forever  with  the  distributions  of  grain,”  he  writes, 
“because  through  dependance  on  them  agriculture  was 
neglected;  but  I  did  not  carry  out  my  purpose,  feeling  sure 
that  they  would  one  day  be  renewed  through  desire  for 
popular  favor.” 

In  fact,  the  state  support  begun  by  Augustus  was  never 
abandoned  by  his  successors;  the  monthly  distributions  of 
corn  were  converted  into  a  daily  ration  of  bread;  and, 
during  five  months  of  the  year,  there  was  added  a  regular 
allowance  of  bacon.  The  interests  of  agriculture  were 
disregarded;  the  free  husbandman,  toiling  on  his  colonial 
patrimony,  fared  worse  than  the  idle  citizen  of  the  capital. 
The  latter  was  not  compelled  to  expend  his  labor  for  the 
food  that  he  annually  consumed.  Out  of  the  hardy  and 
industrious  peasantry  that  preceded  his  reign,  Augustus 
created  an  idle  and  rationed  proletariat. 

42.  All  the  factors  of  diversity  which  promote  the  sur¬ 
vival  of  augmented  nervous  organizations  were  summarily 
extinguished.  Energy,  industry,  thrift,  foresight,  temper¬ 
ance,  chastity,  avarice,  talent,  genius,  the  mental,  moral 
and  spiritual  weapons  which  give  superior  advantages  to 
higher  nervous  organizations  in  the  contest  against  desti¬ 
tution,  vanished.  Even  the  mild  temptation  of  alcohol 
was  abolished. 1 

The  diversity  of  talents,  of  character,  and  of  remuneration, 
all  of  which  belong  to  free  labor,  departed,  and  the  lazy 
plebeians  sank  to  a  servile  uniformity.  Husbands  were  no 

1  Augustus’  rations  did  not  include  wine.  When  the  people  com¬ 
plained,  “My  son-in-law  Agrippa  has  taken  good  care  by  building 
several  aqueducts  that  men  shall  not  go  thirsty,”  he  told  them. 


ROME 


7i 


longer  dependant  upon  their  earnings  for  the  support  of 
their  families.  Women  were  no  longer  dependant  upon 
their  husbands.  The  family  life  of  wage  earners  which 
checks  the  increase  of  low  nervous  organizations  by  reducing 
their  subsistence,  and  promotes  the  increase  of  higher  nerv¬ 
ous  organizations  by  making  life  easier  for  them, 
disappeared.  Cold  women  were  not  driven  to  the  necessity 
of  marriage  and  fruitfulness  to  obtain  the  support  of  a 
husband,  and  ardent  women  were  not  denied  children  for 
lack  of  ability  to  support  them.  The  generosity  of  the 
state  assured  an  equal  ration  to  both.  The  result,  expected 
with  mathematical  certainty,  was  the  total  extinction  of 
augmented  nervous  organizations.  Equal  rations  for  free 
men,  like  equal  rations  for  slaves,  left  fecundity  the  sole 
factor  controlling  the  quality  and  numbers  of  posterity. 
The  groups  of  low  nervous  organization  whose  women  bore 
children  with  smaller  heads  were  most  prolific. 

So,  by  the  free  distribution  of  corn,  Augustus  exactly 
reversed  the  selection  of  mothers  begun  seven  hundred 
years  earlier  by  Numa.  Through  all  these  centuries  of 
poverty  and  oppression,  the  Numan  selection  of  mothers  had 
augmented,  slowly  it  is  true,  but  steadily,  never  letting  it 
decline,  the  nervous  organization  of  the  Roman  plebeians 
until  they  had  become,  in  comparison  with  the  con¬ 
temporaneous  proletariats  of  other  nations,  a  race  of 
supermen.  While  freedom,  diversity,  private  property 
and  monogamy  had  made  the  character  of  posterity  depend 
upon  other  factors  than  fecundity,  their  spiritual  stature 
rose,  and  they  conquered  the  Mediterranean  world.  With 
all  other  factors  abolished,  and  only  fecundity  retained,  the 
Romans  were  easily  worsted  by  the  very  nations  they  had 
vanquished.  Their  augmented  nervous  organizations  could 
not  multiply  as  fast  as  the  prolific  groups  of  low  nervous 
organization.  The  latter  had  an  easy  victory,  and  the 
Roman  stock  soon  died  out  without  replacing  itself. 1 

1  “But  when  the  prodigal  commons  had  imprudently  alienated  not 
only  the  use ,  but  the  inheritance,  of  power  they  sunk,  under  the  reign  of 


72  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


In  a  generation  Rome’s  enemies  were  boasting  her  weak¬ 
ness. 

“‘At  Rome  every  warlike  principle  is  extinguished.  The 
strength  of  their  armies  is  mouldered  away.  They  have 
no  national  strength,  but  depend  altogether  on  foreign 
nations  to  fight  their  battles.  ’  ”  (Tacitus,  Annals,  Bk.  Ill, 
Chap.  XL.) 

43.  From  the  first  century  b.C.  the  names  “patrician” 
and  “plebeian”  lost  their  ancient  significance,  and  may  be 
discarded.  They  no  longer  denote  either  a  durable  or  a 
real  distinction  in  manners,  rank,  power,  wealth,  blood, 
lineage,  paternity  or  maternity.  So  far  as  the  ancient 
patrician  patronymics  linger  on  the  pages  of  history,  they 
were  worn  by  families  which  had  adopted  the  marriage 
customs  of  the  proletariat,  and  by  lax  sexual  unions  had 
debased  the  strain  of  their  posterity.  Old  and  familiar 
names,  repeated  in  the  pages  of  Livy’s  history  from  the 
battle  of  Lake  Regillus  to  the  fall  of  Carthage,  gradually 
disappeared.  The  great  actors  in  history’s  pages  bear  new 
names  of  new  families,  newly  entered  upon  the  Roman 
stage.  Between  the  reign  of  Augustus  and  Vespasian  “a 
new  race  of  men  from  the  municipal  towns,  the  colonies,  and 
the  provinces,  found  their  way,  not  only  to  Rome,  but  even 


the  Caesars,  into  a  vile  and  wretched  populace,  which  must,  in  a  few 
generations,  have  been  totally  extinguished,  if  it  had  not  been  con¬ 
tinually  recruited  by  the  manumission  of  slaves  and  the  influx  of  strang¬ 
ers.  As  early  as  the  time  of  Hadrian  it  was  the  just  complaint  of  the 
ingenuous  natives  that  the  capital  had  attracted  the  vices  of  the  universe 
and  the  manners  of  the  most  opposite  nations.  The  intemperance  of 
the  Gauls,  the  cunning  and  levity  of  the  Greeks,  the  savage  obstinacy  of 
the  Egyptians  and  Jews,  the  servile  temper  of  the  Asiatics,  and  the 
dissolute,  effeminate  prostitution  of  the  Syrians,  were  mingled  in  the 
various  multitude,  which,  under  the  proud  and  false  denomination  of 
Romans,  presumed  to  despise  their  fellow-subjects,  and  even  their 
sovereigns,  who  dwelt  beyond  the  precincts  of  the  Eternal  City." 
(Gibbon,  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire ,  Chap.  XXXI.)  Gibbon 
in  a  footnote  quotes  the  authority  of  both  Juvenal  and  Seneca. 


ROME 


73 


into  the  Senate”  (Tacitus,  Annals ,  Bk.  Ill,  55.)  Roman 
marriage  customs  and  a  Roman  selection  of  mothers,  had 
first  been  carried  by  Roman  conquest  to  the  nearest  Italian 
states.  The  widening  circle  of  Roman  victories  had  con¬ 
tinuously  enlarged  the  colonial  empire  to  the  North  and 
West.  To  the  East  and  South  there  had  been  met  the 
stubborn  resistance  of  ancient  civilizations  with  religions, 
languages,  laws,  and  customs  of  their  own.  So  that  Greece, 
Asia,  Syria,  Egypt,  and  Africa  were  not  the  seats  of  Roman 
colonists  or  the  nurseries  of  Roman  citizens.  They  were 
subdued  and  taxed,  but  their  contributions  to  Rome  were 
limited  to  gold,  corn,  oil,  art,  letters,  luxury,  and  vice. 
Roman  legions  begot  many  children  on  the  women  of  these 
conquered  lands,  but  the  offspring  of  these  mothers  added 
neither  valor  nor  genius  to  the  empire. 

It  was  otherwise  with  the  Roman  conquests  of  Italy  and 
of  the  barbarians  to  the  North  and  West,  Cisalpine  and 
Transalpine  Gaul,  Illyria,  Liguria,  and  Spain.  In  all  this 
region,  Roman  colonies  were  planted;  and  the  colonists 
carried  with  them  Roman  language,  laws,  and  customs, 
Roman  mothers  and  a  Roman  selection  of  mothers.  Roman 
methods  of  improving  the  strain  of  posterity,  of  augmenting 
the  spiritual  stature,  and  of  creating  new  genius  were 
implanted  in  these  colonies  and  these  provinces.  They 
began  to  bear  genius  in  an  order  which  followed  the  order 
in  which  it  was  planted  ;  and  this  genius  gradually  replen¬ 
ished  the  dearth  at  Rome.  When  Rome  was  corrupted 
with  free  love  and  free  food,  the  colonies  which  had  pre¬ 
served  the  ancient  Roman  manners  continued  to  reproduce 
the  ancient  Roman  spirit.  During  the  second  century  a.d., 
the  descendants  of  colonials  and  provincials  ruled  Rome 
and  the  Roman  world. 

44.  At  the  end  of  the  first  century  a.d.  the  decline  of 
the  Roman  orders  in  Rome  itself  and  in  Italy  was  complete. 
It  is  probable  that  most  of  the  ancient  patrician  families  no 
longer  existed  at  all.  Their  names  disappeared  from  his¬ 
tory’s  pages.  The  Roman  and  Italian  commons  still 


74  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


survived,  having  differentiated  into  three  classes,  a  new 
aristocracy,  a  rationed  urban  proletariat,  and  an  impover¬ 
ished  rustic  peasantry.  All  three  classes  were  declining. 
Although  their  nervous  organization  was  far  below  that  of 
their  ancestors  a  century  earlier,  it  was  still  somewhat 
higher  than  that  of  their  slaves,  and  of  the  Gauls,  Africans, 
and  Asiatics  that  had  flowed  into  Rome  and  Italy.  Freed- 
men,  clients,  dependants,  and  bastards,  adopted  the 
patronymics  of  their  patrons ;  so  that  the  continued  survival 
in  Italy  of  Roman  and  Latin  names  during  this  era  is 
imperfect  evidence  of  the  actual  survival  of  much,  if  any, 
of  the  ancient  Roman  stock.  Every  land  is  eventually 
peopled  by  its  most  prolific  women;  i.e.,  those  that  bear 
children  with  smaller  heads.  Powerful  factors  suspend  or 
retard  this  process  in  rising  civilizations,  but  these  are 
removed  and  the  process  hastened  when  civilization  falls. 
Hereafter  Italy  shared  with  every  province  of  the  empire 
the  honor  of  seating  an  emperor  or  a  dynasty  on  the  imperial 
throne;  and  the  fact  that  history  no  longer  admits  any 
Italian  or  Roman  ascendancy  or  predominance  in  the 
imperial  rule,  is  strong  evidence  of  a  striking  change  in  the 
Italian  population.1 

Outside  of  Italy,  the  Roman  colonies  in  Gaul  and  Spain 
had  preserved  and  increased  the  ancient  Roman  stock, 

1  “For  the  empire  during  which  we  have  fairly  full  records  of  the  more 
distinguished  families  we  are  enabled  even  to  reach  definite  statistics 
regarding  the  amazingly  rapid  decline  of  the  old  stock.  For  instance,  of 
the  forty-five  patricians  in  the  senate  in  Caesar’s  day  only  one  is  repre¬ 
sented  by  posterity  in  Hadrian’s  day.  The  famous  iEmilii,  Fabii, 
Claudii,  Manlii,  Valerii  and  all  the  rest,  with  the  exception  of  the 
Cornelii,  have  disappeared.  Augustus  and  Claudius  raised  twenty-five 
families  to  the  patriciate,  and  all  but  six  of  them  vanish  before  Nerva’s 
reign.  Of  the  families  of  nearly  four  hundred  senators  recorded  in  65 
a.d.  under  Nero  all  trace  of  a  half  is  lost  a  generation  later,  and  not  a 
few  of  those  surviving  live  on  only  through  the  adoption  of  children.  Of 
course  members  of  the  aristocracy  suffered  severely  under  the  political 
tyranny  of  that  century,  but  most  of  this  result  is  after  all  directly 
traceable  to  voluntary  childlessness.”  (Frank,  Economic  History  of 
Rome ,  Chap.  X.) 


ROME 


75 


untouched  by  the  causes  which  had  destroyed  the  patricians 
and  plebeians  of  Rome  itself.  From  this  stock  came  the 
rulers  of  the  second  century  a.d.,  Trajan,  Hadrian,  Anto¬ 
ninus  Pius,  and  Marcus  Aurelius.  They  also  obtained  their 
troops  from  the  provinces;  and  the  genius  of  provincial 
commanders  uniting  with  the  valor  of  provincial  soldiers 
restored  the  prestige  and  raised  the  power  of  Rome. 

45.  The  first  of  these  emperors  was  Trajan,  of  Italian 
blood  but  born  in  Spain  in  the  Roman  colony  of  Italica. 
He  was  accompanied  to  Rome  by  his  wife  Plotina  and  his 
sister  Marciana.  And  it  was  at  once  noticed  that  the 
women  of  this  provincial  family  had  escaped  the  vices,  even 
the  fashions  of  the  Roman  ladies.1  The  virtues  of  Plotina 
are  praised  by  Pliny  and  by  Dion  Cassius. 

Under  Trajan,  the  pagan  empire  rose  to  a  new  height  of 
power. 

“Every  day  the  astonished  senate  received  the  intelli¬ 
gence  of  new  names  and  new  nations,  that  acknowledged  his 
sway.  They  were  informed  that  the  kings  of  Bosphorus, 
Colchos,  Iberia,  Albania,  Osrhcene,  and  even  the  Parthian 
monarch  himself,  had  accepted  their  diadems  from  the 
hands  of  the  emperor;  that  the  independent  tribes  of  the 
Median  and  Carduchian  hills  had  implored  his  protection ; 
and  that  the  rich  countries  of  Armenia,  Mesopotamia,  and 
Assyria,  were  reduced  into  the  state  of  provinces.” 
(Gibbon,  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire ,  Chap.  I.) 

1  Portraits  of  the  ladies  of  the  Caesars,  and  of  their  successors  the 
provincials,  will  be  found  in  General  Young’s  book  Ea±t  and  West 
Through  Fifteen  Centuries .  With  respect  to  the  provincial  women  he 
observes:  11  The  manner  in  which  these  ladies  arranged  their  hair,  to  be 
seen  in  the  portraits  of  Titus’  daughter  Julia,  of  Domitian’s  wife,  Domi- 
tia  Longina,  of  Trajan’s  sister  Marciana,  and  of  Hadrian’s  wife  Sabina 
(Plates  XXIX,  XXXI,  XXXV,  and  XXXVII),  is  extraordinary,  and  in 
much  contrasr  to  the  almost  modem  style  in  which  the  ladies  of  a  more 
aristocratic  time,  that  of  the  Caesars,  wore  their  hair,  to  be  seen  in  the 
portraits  of  Livia,  Antonia,  Agrippina  the  elder,  Domitia  Lepida,  and 
Poppaea  (Plates  V,  VII,  XIII,  and  XXI,  Chap.,  VI.)”  It  is  evident  that 
these  provincial  women  were  unspoiled,  had  little  contact  with  the 
capital,  little  knowledge  of  its  manners,  and  did  not  ape  its  fashions. 


76  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


The  extension  of  the  empire’s  frontiers,  and  the  addition 
of  new  provinces  from  without,  while  peace,  security,  and 
humane  government  were  preserved  within  the  empire,  are 
strong  evidence  that  the  virtues  formerly  bred  into  the  old 
patrician  order  of  Rome,  had  not  died  out  among  Roman 
colonists  and  provincials.  The  disorders  of  the  first  century 
b.c.,  the  decline  of  the  aristocracy,  the  proscription  of 
Sulla,  the  assassination  of  Caesar,  the  wars  of  the  Trium¬ 
virate,  and  the  founding  of  the  empire,  were  at  this  period 
but  memories  of  a  remote  and  receding  past.  Pliny’s 
letters  show  a  busy  pagan  civilization,  lively  and  interesting 
as  the  nineteenth  century  of  our  era,  retaining  its  virtues 
through  a  favorable  selection  of  mothers. 

The  old  patrician  names  were  nearly  gone.  But  the  old 
patrician  manners,  surviving  in  the  remoter  colonies  and 
provinces,  had  again  augmented  the  Roman  spirit,  and 
had  raised  up  a  new  aristocracy  to  fill  the  place  of  the  old. 
In  these  letters,  we  see  among  Pliny’s  friends  and  acquain¬ 
tances,  the  morals  of  an  earlier  Rome: — The  authority  of 
fathers  and  husbands  is  restored,  the  obedience  of  daughters 
and  wives  is  expected.  Women  are  chaste,  dutiful,  loyal, 
made  fruitful  by  humility  and  obedience  rather  than  desire. 
An  uncle  seeks  a  husband  for  his  niece.  Pliny  recommends 
“a  native  of  Brixia,  a  city  of  that  Italy  we  both  love,  the 
Italy  which  still  retains  much  of  the  sobriety,  the  frugality 
— aye,  and  the  rustic  plainness — of  ancient  manners.”  The 
youth  is  descended  from  a  mother  and  grandmother  of 
Padua;  who  are  looked  upon  “even  among  those  reserved 
people  as  an  exemplary  instance  of  strict  virtue.”  (Pliny’s 
Letters,  1-14.)  Pliny’s  young  wife  (he  was  thrice  married) 
was  a  pattern  of  all  the  domestic  virtues  of  old-fashioned 
Rome.  Girls  are  again  betrothed  as  virgins  at  the  age  of 
thirteen,  given  by  a  father’s  command  in  monogamous 
marriage  to  a  husband’s  rule.  Cold  women  are  made 
fruitful,  the  nervous  organization  is  augmented,  and  in 
consequence  miscarriage  and  death  in  childbed  recur. 
(Ibid.,  bk.  IV,  21.)  By  the  free  love  of  the  Augustan  age, 


ROME 


77 


the  “family”  in  the  ancient  Roman  sense  had  been  des¬ 
troyed,  and  mortals  substituted  in  its  stead.  Men  and 
women  contracted  and  dissolved  their  unions  at  pleasure, 
and  their  brittle  marriage  was  the  fragile  seal  of  individual 
desire.  The  aristocracy  that  destroyed  the  family  des¬ 
troyed  itself.  In  Pliny’s  letters,  family  organization,  family 
discipline,  family  authority  again  appear,  and  a  new 
aristocracy  was  born  to  the  Romans  who  restored  the  family 
as  a  social  unit.  Under  Caligula  and  Nero  visible  things 
were  worshipped,  and  the  rising  tide  of  riches  and  luxury 
corrupted  the  posterity  of  free  love,  whose  debased  nervous 
organization  was  incapable  of  offering  spiritual  resistance 
to  temptation.  Under  Trajan,  riches  and  luxury  had  in¬ 
creased  by  two  generations;  but  the  augmented  nervous 
organization  of  a  posterity  born  to  the  austere  and  virtuous 
women  of  colonials  and  provincials  who  now  ruled  Rome, 
raised  the  spiritual  stature  above  temptation.  The  pages 
of  Pliny  give  no  such  pictures  of  vice  as  do  the  Satires 
of  Juvenal.  In  one,  we  see  the  rise  of  an  improved  strain 
from  the  provinces ;  in  the  other,  the  decline  of  the  ancient 
Roman  stock. 

46.  For  a  century,  the  new  strains  of  Roman  blood  from 
colonies  and  provinces  continued  to  command  the  empire. 
At  the  close  of  the  second  century  a.d.,  they  declined  and 
vanished,  as  the  patrician  and  plebeian  groups  of  Rome 
itself  had  successively  declined.  The  sceptre  now  passed 
to  a  succession  of  emperors  who  were  not  Roman  at  all, 
either  in  birth,  lineage,  or  tongue.  Septimius  Severus, 
who  ascended  the  throne  in  a.d.  193,  was  an  African,  and 
showed  it  both  in  his  physiognomy,  and  his  speech.  He  had 
to  acquire  Latin  as  a  foreign  language.  The  dynasty 
founded  by  hirn  was  followed  by  Maximin  (235-238),  a 
barbarian  shepherd  of  Thrace  whose  father  was  a  Goth 
and  whose  mother  was  an  Alan.  He  was  succeeded,  for  six 
years,  by  the  Gordians  (238-244),  who  were  Africans, 
although  perhaps  of  Roman  or  Spanish  descent ;  and  they  in 
turn  were  followed  by  Philip  (244-249)  an  Arab  by  birth, 


78  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


and  therefore  a  robber  by  profession.  It  was  in  the  reign 
of  Philip  the  Arabian  that  the  city  of  Rome  celebrated  with 
great  magnificence  her  one  thousandth  birthday. 

The  change  from  Roman  to  foreign  emperors  marks  the 
decline  of  the  Roman  colonial  and  provincial  strain ;  and  the 
causes  of  that  decline  continued  to  infect  and  impair 
succeeding  generations  of  the  posterity  of  all  the  pagan 
inhabitants  of  the  empire.  For,  now,  a  new  grouping 
must  be  made  of  the  people  that  were  tributary  to  Rome. 
During  and  after  the  second  century,  they  were  divided  by  a 
new  line  of  cleavage,  which  set  apart  pagan  from  Christian. 
Each  group  was  self-contained,  self-sustaining,  and  the  two 
groups  differed  from  each  other  as  widely  in  domestic 
customs  and  the  selection  of  mothers  as  once  did  the  groups 
of  patricians  and  plebeians  or  of  Romans  and  provincials. 
The  pagans  declined,  the  Christians  rose;  each  group  follow¬ 
ing  the  course  mapped  out  for  it  by  mathematical  law. 
Attention  may  first  be  given  to  the  cause  of  the  pagan 
group’s  decline. 

47.  At  this  time,  pagan  marriage  was  simply  “a  loose 
and  voluntary  compact,  religious  and  civil  rites  were  no 
longer  essential ;  and  between  persons  of  a  similar  rank  the 
apparent  community  of  life  was  allowed  as  sufficient  evi¬ 
dence  of  their  nuptials.” 


“When  the  Roman  matrons  became  the  equal  and 
voluntary  companions  of  their  lords,  a  new  jurisprudence 
was  introduced,  that  marriage,  like  other  partnerships, 
might  be  dissolved  by  the  abdication  of  one  of  the  associates. 
In  three  centuries  of  prosperity  and  corruption,  this  prin¬ 
ciple  was  enlarged  to  frequent  practice  and  pernicious 
abuse.  Passion,  interest,  or  caprice  suggested  daily 
motives  for  the  dissolution  of  marriage;  a  word,  a  sign, 
a  message,  a  letter,  the  mandate  of  a  freedman,  declared 
the  separation;  the  most  tender  of  human  connections 
was  degraded  to  a  transient  society  of  profit  or  pleasure. 
According  to  the  various  conditions  of  life,  both  sexes 
alternately  felt  the  disgrace  and  injury;  an  inconstant 
spouse  transferred  her  wealth  to  a  new  family,  abandoning 


ROME 


79 


a  numerous,  perhaps  a  spurious,  progeny  to  the  paternal 
authority  and  care  of  her  late  husband;  a  beautiful  virgin 
might  be  dismissed  to  the  world,  old,  indigent,  and  friend¬ 
less;  but  the  reluctance  of  the  Romans,  when  they  were 
pressed  to  marriage  by  Augustus,  sufficiently  marks  that 
the  prevailing  institutions  were  least  favorable  to  the  males. 
A  specious  theory  is  confuted  by  this  free  and  perfect 
experiment,  which  demonstrates  that  the  liberty  of  divorce 
does  not  contribute  to  happiness  and  virtue.”  (Gibbon, 
Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire ,  Chap.  XLIV.) 

An  equal  facility  of  divorce  affords  to  cold  women  an 
easy  escape  from  unwelcome  conjugal  duties.  And,  to  free 
divorce,  the  pagans  added  the  general  practice  of  concu¬ 
binage. 

“A  concubine,  in  the  strict  sense  of  the  civilians,  was  a 
woman  of  servile  or  plebeian  extraction,  the  sole  and  faith¬ 
ful  companion  of  a  Roman  citizen,  who  continued  in  a  state 
of  celibacy.  Her  modest  station,  below  the  honours  of  a 
wife,  above  the  infamy  of  a  prostitute,  was  acknowledged 
and  approved  by  the  laws;  from  the  age  of  Augustus  to  the 
tenth  century  the  use  of  this  secondary  marriage  prevailed 
both  in  the  West  and  East;  and  the  humble  virtues  of  a 
concubine  were  often  preferred  to  the  pomp  and  insolence 
of  a  noble  matron.  In  this  connection  the  two  Antonines, 
the  best  of  princes  and  of  men,  enjoyed  the  comforts  of 
domestic  love;  the  example  was  imitated  by  many  citizens 
impatient  of  celibacy,  but  regardful  of  their  families.  If  at 
any  time  they  desired  to  legitimatize  their  natural  children, 
the  conversion  was  instantly  performed  by  the  celebration 
of  their  nuptials  with  a  partner  whose  fruitfulness  and 
fidelity  they  had  already  tried.”  {Ibid.) 

Free  distribution  of  corn,  begun  by  Augustus  for  the 
relief  of  indigent  citizens  of  Rome,  had  spread  to  every 
large  and  wealthy  city  of  the  empire,  and  gradually  cor¬ 
rupted  the  urban  proletariat  of  each.  It  established 
fecundity  as  the  chief,  if  not  the  sole,  factor  of  survival  and 
filled  the  cities  with  the  prolific  descendants  of  those  groups 
of  low  nervous  organization  whose  women  bore  children 
with  smaller  heads.  In  a  rationed  urban  proletariat  loose 


8o  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


sexual  unions  may  be  taken  for  granted.  Augmented 
nervous  organizations  could  survive,  if  they  could  survive 
at  all,  only  in  the  country  and  the  provinces.  And  in 
Europe  these  regions  were  impoverished  by  a  practice 
which  deprived  them  of  their  best  market.  Pliny  complains 
that,  though  his  lands  are  productive,  and  his  barns  are  full, 
the  only  estate  which  yields  him  any  profit  is  the  one  where 
he  cultivates  his  mind  and  not  his  lands. 1 

48.  The  provinces  and  country  districts,  however,  still 
supported  a  large  and  unrationed  population  of  freemen  of 
Roman  or  Italian  descent ;  and  these,  from  Vespasian  to 
Marcus  Aurelius,  had  contributed  strength  and  genius  to 
the  empire.  The  decline  of  the  pagan  part  of  this  popula¬ 
tion  from  the  second  century  onward  must  be  ascribed  to 
free  divorce  and  concubinage.  From  the  reign  of  Augustus, 
both  had  been  freely  practiced  in  the  higher  circles  at 
Rome ;  but  it  was  not  until  the  second  century  that  they  began 
to  corrupt  the  provincials  of  Roman  stock.  Pliny’s  letters 
show  no  trace  of  them  in  his  circle  of  provincial  friends.  In 
the  second  century,  concubinage  became  common,  even  re¬ 
spectable.  “  In  this  connection  the  two  Antonines,  the  best 
of  princes  and  of  men,  enjoyed  the  comforts  of  domestic 
love.”  The  Antonines  were  of  provincial  stock,  Antoninus 
Pius  coming  from  a  Roman  family  settled  at  Nismes  in 
Gaul;  and  the  example  set  in  such  high  quarters  was 
followed  throughout  the  empire  by  wealthy  pagans  of  the 


1  To  Julius  Naso — “A  storm  of  hail,  I  am  informed,  has  destroyed  all 
the  produce  of  my  estate  in  Tuscany ;  while  that  which  I  have  on  the  other 
side  of  the  Po,  though  it  has  proved  extremely  fruitful  this  season,  yet 
from  the  excessive  cheapness  of  every  thing,  turns  to  small  account.  My 
Laurentine  seat  is  the  single  possession  which  yields  me  any  return.  I 
have  nothing  there,  indeed,  but  a  house  and  gardens,  and  the  sands  lie 
just  beyond;  still,  however,  my  sole  profit  comes  thence.  For  there  I 
cultivate,  not  my  land  (since  I  have  none) ,  but  my  mind,  and  form  many 
a  composition.  As  in  other  places  I  can  show  you  full  bams;  so  there  I 
^an  display  a  well-stocked  book-case.  Let  me  advise  you  then,  if  you 
wish  for  an  ever-productive  farm,  to  purchase  something  upon  this 
coast.”  (Pliny,  Letters,  IV,  6.) 


ROME 


81 


best  families,  who  were  unwilling  to  surrender  their  in¬ 
dependence  or  to  jeopardize  their  happiness  by  formal 
marriage  with  the  insolent  and  selfish  women  of  their  own 
rank.  There  is  striking  evidence  to  show  how  fast  it  spread 
among  the  respectable  pagans,  and  to  what  lengths  the 
practice  was  carried.  The  younger  Gor dianus,  a  scholar 
and  man  of  letters  of  one  of  the  first  families  of  Rome,  and 
enjoying  senatorial  rank,  had  twenty-two  acknowledged 
concubines  and  left  a  progeny  of  three  or  four  children  by 
each.  (Gibbon,  Ibid Chap.  VIII.) 

It  is  plain  that  the  decline  of  the  pagan  provincials  was 
effected  by  a  cause  similar  to  that  which  had  already  des¬ 
troyed  the  orders  of  Roman  patricians  and  plebeians.  The 
provincials  were  a  more  numerous  group  and  occupied  a  far 
larger  extent  of  territory,  yet  in  concubinage  they  found 
the  certain  means  of  sterilizing  their  cold  women.  Their 
posterity  were  descended  only  from  ardent  and  willing 
mothers  of  low  nervous  organization.  The  futile  pretence 
of  ‘  ‘  legitimatising  ’  ’  the  children  of  a  concubine  by  a  subse¬ 
quent  marriage  with  their  mother  improved  their  legal 
status,  but  could  not  change  their  spiritual  character. 
Each  succeeding  generation  reduced  the  nervous  organi¬ 
zation  of  the  pagan  provincials,  dwarfed  their  spiritual 
stature,  and  brought  them  nearer  to  the  rank  and  condition 
of  Asiatics. 

49.  The  empire  was  then  in  the  hands  of  the  pagans; 
and  the  middle  of  the  third  century  was  a  period  of  un¬ 
paralleled  defeats  and  disasters.  In  the  ten  years  from  250 
to  260  a.d.,  the  Goths  crossed  the  Danube,  defeated  and 
destroyed  a  Roman  army,  and  killed  the  Roman  emperor 
Decius  in  Thrace;  the  Franks  crossed  the  Rhine  and  spread 
devastation  throughout  the  whole  of  Gaul;  the  Allemanni 
invaded  Noricum  and  Rhastia,  penetrated  into  Italy  itself, 
and  advanced  as  far  as  Ravenna ;  the  Goths,  having  built  a 
fleet,  crossed  the  Black  Sea,  ravaged  in  succession  Pontus 
and  Bithynia,  and  the  coasts  of  Mysia  and  Lydia,  destroy¬ 
ing  at  Ephesus  the  magnificent  Temple  of  “Diana  of  the 

VOL.  I — 6 


82  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


Ephesians,”  one  of  the  seven  wonders  of  the  world,  and 
then  attacked  and  ravaged  Greece;  and  lastly  the  Persians, 
under  Sapor  I,  the  son  of  Artaxerxes,  conquered  Armenia, 
defeated  the  whole  of  the  eastern  border  of  the  empire,  and, 
capturing  the  emperor  Valerian,  carried  him  off  a  prisoner 
to  Persia.  At  the  end  of  the  third  century,  the  pagans 
had  assumed  the  spiritual  characteristics  of  Asiatics,  and 
Diocletian,  last  of  the  pagan  emperors,  abandoned  the  laws 
and  administrative  organization  founded  three  centuries 
earlier  by  Augustus,  and  remodeled  the  Roman  Empire  on 
Asiatic  lines. 1 

In  his  reign,  the  cycle  of  pagan  Rome  was  complete. 
During  the  thousand  years  which  had  passed  since  Numa, 
spiritual  exaltation  and  worldly  power  had  been  achieved 
and  lost  in  turn  by  three  successive  groups.  Each  group 
had  risen  as  it  enforced  a  favorable  selection  of  mothers,  and 
each  had  declined  and  perished  when  its  selection  of  mothers 
changed.  The  same  thing  was  now  to  happen  to  the 
Christians. 

50.  Instead  of  the  former  grouping  of  patrician  and 
plebeian,  followed  by  Roman  and  provincial,  the  imperial 
subjects  were  now  divided  into  pagan  and  Christian.  The 
third  century  a.d.  shows  the  decline  of  the  pagan  and  rise 
of  the  Christian  group ;  and  in  the  fourth  century  the  Christ¬ 
ians  gained  possession  of  the  empire.  The  same  difference 
in  the  selection  of  mothers  that,  during  the  first  millennium 
of  Roman  history,  distinguished  the  former  groups,  and 
governed  their  rise  and  fall,  now  separated  and  classified 
pagans  and  Christians.  The  former  declined,  and  the 
latter  advanced,  in  obedience  to  mathematical  law.  The 
loose  marriage  customs,  the  free  divorce  and  concubinage, 

1  “‘Rome  and  her  provinces,’  says  the  historian  of  the  Caesars,  ‘lived 
for  three  centuries  beneath  the  laws  and  traditions  of  Augustus.  It 
was  at  a  later  period  that  decrepit  and  struggling  for  existence,  it 
accepted,  as  the  veteran’s  crutch,  the  puerile  and  oriental  system  of 
administration  which  it  received  from  Diocletian.  ’  ”  (Sheppard,  Fall  of 
Rome ,  Lecture  II.) 


ROME 


83 


which  had  been  adopted  by  all  the  pagan  world,  were  not,  to 
the  end  of  the  third  century,  admitted  or  allowed  by  the 
Christian  communion.  To  the  last  generation  of  their 
advancement  in  civilization,  Christian  sexual  morals  were 
pure,  the  sanctity  of  marriage  was  upheld  and  blessed  by 
their  priests  and  bishops,  monogamy  was  strictly  enforced, 
and  divorce  was  forbidden.  Thus,  the  first  Christians 
revived  the  ancient  virtues  of  rising  Rome. 

The  New  Testament  condemned  in  set  terms  all  sexual 
laxity  and  uncleanness;  laid  repeated  stress  on  the  duty  of 
obedience  by  children  to  parents  and  wives  to  husbands; 
insisted  on  indissoluble  monogamous  marriage;  and  taught 
the  modest  demeanor  and  submission  of  women  both  in  the 
home  and  in  the  church.  In  only  one  of  his  Epistles  did 
St.  Paul,  weighing  the  balance  between  marriage  and 
virginity,  give  some  countenance  to  the  latter  as  the  better 

<  ‘  1 


“The  dignity  of  marriage  was  restored  by  the  Christians, 
who  derived  all  spiritual  grace  from  the  prayers  of  the 
faithful  and  the  benediction  of  the  priest  or  bishop.  The 
origin,  validity,  and  duties  of  the  holy  institution  were 
regulated  by  the  tradition  of  the  synagogue,  the  precepts 
of  the  Gospel,  and  the  canons  of  general  or  provincial 
synods;  and  the  conscience  of  the  Christians  was  awed  by 
the  decrees  and  censures  of  their  ecclesiastical  rulers.  ’  ’  (Gib¬ 
bon,  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire ,  Chap.  XLIV.) 

1  I  Corinthians,  VII;  Ephesians,  V;  Colossians,  III;  I  Timothy,  II 
and  V;  Titus,  II;  see  also  I  Peter,  III. 

1  In  Rome  girls  were  taught  “to  live  always  under  the  authority  of  a 
man,  whether  father,  husband  or  guardian,  without  the  right  to  possess 
property,  not  even  a  dowry,  to  be  gentle,  obedient,  and  chaste,  attentive 
only  to  housework  and  children.”  (Ferrero,  Greatness  and  Decline  of 
Rome ,  Chap.  I.) 

“That  they  may  teach  the  young  women  to  be  sober,  to  love  their 
husbands,  to  love  their  children, 

To  be  discreet,  chaste,  keepers  at  home,  good,  obedient  to  their  own 
husbands,  that  the  word  of  God  be  not  blasphemed.”  (St.  Paul,  Epistle 
to  Titus,  II,  4  and  5.) 

It  is  an  interesting  parallel. 


84  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


The  Christians  were  not  under  law  but  under  grace ;  lax¬ 
ity  of  marital  unions  then  allowed  by  law,  was  not  sanc¬ 
tioned  by  the  Church.  As  five  centuries  earlier,  in  pagan 
Rome,  so  now  among  the  Christian  sect,  a  pure  virgin  was 
dedicated  to  motherhood,  and  was  given  in  indissoluble 
monogamous  marriage  by  paternal  command  sanctioned  by 
a  religious  rite,  to  a  husband  whom  she  obeyed. 1  The  result 
was  to  make  fruitful  the  cold  as  well  as  the  ardent  of  the 
Christian  wives.  So  that,  in  the  fourth  century  ad.,  the 
offspring  of  Christian  marriage  were  the  only  inhabitants 
of  the  empire  who  could  claim  an  ancestry  of  one  or  more 
cold  genetrices.  The  same  cause  which  had  made  Rome 
mistress  of  the  world,  and  which  had  elevated  the  plebeian 
above  the  patrician,  had  now  made  pagan  and  Christian 
ch  e  places.2 


The  Christian  rise  began,  as  would  be  expected,  in 


the  lowest  classes  of  society — the  small  tradesmen, 
publicans,  farmers,  peasants,  fishermen,  servants,  and 
slaves — collectively  the  proletariat.  Spiritual  improve¬ 
ment,  necessarily  slow,  must  begin  always  with  the  poor, 
because  they  have  ahead  of  them  enough  generations  of 

1  St.  Augustine  gives  a  beautiful  picture  of  the  virtues  of  his  mother, 
St.  Monica. 

2  “The  sensual  connection  was  refined  into  a  resemblance  of  the 
mystic  union  of  Christ  with  his  church,  and  was  pronounced  to  be 
indissoluble  either  by  divorce  or  by  death.  The  practice  of  a  second 
nuptials  was  branded  with  the  name  of  a  legal  adultery ;  and  the  persons 
who  were  guilty  of  so  scandalous  an  offence  against  Christian  purity  were 
soon  excluded  from  the  honours,  and  even  from  the  arms,  of  the  church." 
(Gibbon,  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire ,  Chap.  XV.) 

The  same  hostility  to  second  marriage  was  shown  by  pagan  Romans 
in  the  third  century  b.  c.  when  Verginia  erected  her  altar  to  the  plebe¬ 
ian  Pudicitia  (p.53-54),  and  by  the  Pagan  Germans  when  their  morals 
were  observed  and  recorded  by  Tacitus  (Germania  XIX).  Note  the 
parallel  between  the  ideals  of  the  Romans  who  conquered  the  Mediter¬ 
ranean  world,  the  Christians  who  rose  to  command  the  empire,  and  the 
Germans  that  the  empire  never  conquered.  The  virgin  who  chooses 
marriage,  does  so  in  ignorance;  the  widow  with  knowledge.  It  is  plain 
that  the  voluntary  remarriage  of  a  widow  exercises  a  different  selection 
on  motherhood  from  the  first  marriage  of  a  virgin. 


ROME 


85 


posterity  to  afford  the  time  required  for  spiritual  growth. 
It  cannot  begin  with  the  rich,  whose  nervous  organizations 
are  already  augmented,  because  their  fertility  is  continu- 
uously  decreasing,  and  any  further  augmentation  of  their 
spiritual  stature  causes  this  group  to  disappear.  This  law 
is  truly  exemplified  in  all  the  civilizations  of  Israel,  Greece, 
and  Rome ;  and  even  the  Roman  patrician  order  is  no  excep- 
tion^For  the  first  patricians  were  poor  men,  judged  by 
any  other  standard  than  their  plebeian  neighbors.  Attus 
Clausus,  founder  of  the  proud  Claudian  house,  one  of  the 
great  patrician  families  of  Rome,  received  from  the  Roman 
state,  when  he  came  to  Rome  from  the  Sabine  tribes,  twenty- 
five  acres  of  land.  The  historical  anecdotes  of  Coriolanus, 
of  Cincinnatus,  of  Manius  Curius,  and  of  Regulus,  of  Fa- 
bius  Maximus,  Scipio  Africanus,  and  ASmilius  Paullus,  with 
many  others,  attest  the  fact  that,  during  the  whole  of  the 
rise  of  the  patrician  group,  the  Roman  patrician  families 
were  poor,  lived  frugally  on  a  small  patrimony,  labored 
with  their  own  hands  on  their  own  lands,  and  left  no  for¬ 
tunes  when  they  died. 1 

The  rise  of  the  Christians  for  three  centuries  was  in 
obedience  to  the  same  law.  Their  religion  separated  them 
not  only  from  pagan  marriage  and  morals,  pagan  divorce 

1  Lucius  Quintus  Cincinnatus ,  while  digging  or  ploughing  on  his  farm 
of  four  acres,  was  visited  by  ambassadors  who  saluted  him  as  dictator. 
(Livy,  Bk.  III.,  26.) 

Manius  Curius,  one  of  the  greatest  of  the  Romans,  having  subdued 
the  most  warlike  nations  and  driven  Pyrrhus  out  of  Italy,  after  three 
triumphs  was  contented  to  dig  in  a  small  piece  of  ground  and  live  in  a 
plain  and  tiny  cottage.  “Here  it  was  that  the  ambassadors  of  the 
Samnites  finding  him  boiling  turnips  in  the  chimney  comer,  offered 
him  a  present  of  gold;  but  he  sent  them  away  with  this  saying;  that  he, 
who  was  content  with  such  a  supper  had  no  need  of  gold.”  (Plutarch’s 
Life  of  Marcus  Cato.) 

Attilius  Regulus  during  his  consulship  (y.r.  497)  and  the  war  with  the. 
Carthaginians,  asked  the  senate  to  be  recalled  alleging  “that  his  little, 
farm,  being  all  his  subsistence,  was  going  to  min,  owing  to  the  mis. 
management  of  hired  stewards.”  (Livy,  Bk.  XVIII  epit.) 

Fabius  Maximus*  Whenjhe  died,  the  people  defrayed  the  expenses  of 


86  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


and  concubinage,  but  also  from  pagan  worship,  from  pagan 
sacrifices  to  pagan  gods,  and  from  the  bounty  of  a  pagan 
government.  They  could  not  submit  to  official  tests  for 
fitness  for  pagan  offices,  nor  could  they  accept  office,  nor 
perquisites,  nor  power.  They  were  obscure  when  they 
were  not  persecuted,  and  they  were  persecuted  when  they 
were  not  obscure.  They  cultivated  their  own  lands,  and 
liyed  by  their  own  labor  soberly,  frugally,  and  in  the  fear 
of  God.  Gibbon  describes  two  of  them,  “grandsons  of  St. 
Jude,  the  Apostle,  who  himself  was  the  brother  of  Jesus 
Christ,”  brought  before  a  magistrate  on  the  charge  of  being 
Christians.  “When  they  were  examined  concerning  their 
fortune  and  occupation,  they  showed  their  hands  hardened 
with  daily  labor  and  declared  that  they  derived  their 
whole  subsistence  frorq,  the  cultivation  of  a  farm  near 
the  village  of  Cocaba,  of  the  extent  of  about  24  English 
acres,  and  of  the  value  of  nine  thousand  drachma, 
or  three  hundred  pounds  sterling.  The  grandsons  of 
St.  Jude  were  dismissed  with  compassion  and  con¬ 
tempt.”2  (Gibbon,  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire, 
Chap.  XVI.) 

his  funeral  by  private  contribution  from  each  citizen.  Plutarch :  Life 
of  Fabius. 

JEmilius  Paullus.  “Such  was  the  moderation  and  integrity  of  this 
great  commander,  that,  notwithstanding  the  immense  treasures  he  had 
brought  from  Spain  and  Macedon,  upon  the  sale  of  his  effects,  there 
could  scarcely  be  raised  a  sum  sufficient  to  repay  his  wife’s  fortune.” 
(Livy,  Bk.  XLVI.) 

Lucius  Scipio.  “  The  praetor  then  sent  the  quaestors  to  take  posses¬ 
sion  of  Lucius  Scipio ’s  property  for  the  use  of  the  public.  And  not  only 
did  no  trace  appear  of  money  received  from  the  king,  but  not  even  so 
much  was  made  up  from  the  sale  as  the  sum  in  which  he  was  fined.  So 
large  a  contribution  was  made  for  Lucius  Scipio  by  his  relations,  friends, 
and  clients,  that,  if  he  had  accepted  it,  he  would  have  been  much  richer 
than  before  this  misfortune;  but  he  received  nothing.  Such  things  as 
were  necessary  for  his  family  occasions,  were  bought  back  at  the  sale 
by  his  nearest  relations.”  (Livy,  Bk.  XXXVIII,  60.) 

2  Prices  vary  from  age  to  age,  and  income  stated  in  terms  of  money 
varies  in  accordance  with  the  variation  of  prices.  So  a  person  “passing 


ROME 


87 


Because  they  were  of  the  class  of  the  poor  and  the  op¬ 
pressed  who  labor  by  their  own  hands — the  class  rightly 
called  the  proletariat  because  they  are  more  prolific  than 
other  classes — the  followers  of  the  new  religion  increased 
in  numbers  faster  than  their  rich  and  powerful  oppressors. 
Because  they  were  Christians  and  had  revived  in  the 
Christian  communion  the  ancient  selection  of  mothers, 
once  taught  by  Numa  to  the  pagan  Romans,  their  spiritual 
stature  rose  as  that  of  the  pagans  declined.  So  that  in 
three  centuries,  and  through  ten  persecutions,  the  Christ¬ 
ians,  beginning  far  behind  the  pagans,  had  out-distanced 
them  in  every  respect.  They  had  multiplied  in  numbers, 
and  had  grown  in  grace.  At  the  beginning  of  this  period, 
the  wealth,  power,  and  respectability  of  the  empire  were 
altogether  in  the  hands  of  the  pagans,  at  the  end  of  it,  of 
the  Christians. 

52.  From  the  founding  of  Rome,  in  the  eighth  century, 
B.C.,  to  the  Christianization  of  the  Roman  empire,  in  the 
fourth  century  a.d.  there  stretched  a  period  of  about  eleven 
centuries  during  which  Roman  power  was  never  wholly 
extinguished.  The  sceptre  passed  from  the  ancient  patri¬ 
cian  order  of  Rome,  to  the  plebeians ;  from  the  plebeians  of 
Rome  and  its  vicinity,  to  the  provincials;  and  from  the 
pagan  provincials,  to  the  Christians. 

The  succession  was  determined  wholly  by  each  group’s 
selection  for  motherhood — the  declining  group  always  hav¬ 
ing  abandoned  the  usages  which  impressed  motherhood  upon 
cold  women,  and  the  rising  group  always  having  adopted 
them.  It  is  noticeable  that  this  is  a  law  of  causation  which 

rich  with  forty  pounds  a  year  ”  in  the  eighteenth  century,  would  be  very 
poor  with  the  same  income  in  the  twentieth.  But  the  produce  of  land  is 
relatively  constant;  and  an  equal  number  of  acres  tilled  with  equal  in¬ 
dustry  yield  their  possessor  an  equal  income  in  al  1  ages.  It  is  interesting 
to  observe,  therefore,  that  these  Christian  peasants  of  the  first  century, 
who  were  “dismissed  with  compassion  and  contempt,”  owned  and  tilled 
as  much  ground,  and  therefore  enjoyed  the  same  income  as  the  great 
Attus  Clausus,  founder  of  the  patrician  Claudian  house,  five  hundred 
years  earlier. 


88  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


not  only  determined  the  succession  of  these  respective 
groups  but  also  determined  the  relative  strength  of  the 
empire  itself.  The  larger  the  group  which  impressed  matern¬ 
ity  upon  its  cold  women,  the  stronger  the  empire.  Posterity 
in'  greater  numbers,  both  absolutely  and  proportionately, 
claimed  descent  from  cold  genetrices.  Thus,  as  the  plebeian 
group  succeeded  the  patrician,  the  republic  was  stronger 
under  Marius  than  under  Marcellus  or  Scipio;  as  provincial 
plebeians  succeeded  Roman  plebeians,  the  empire  was 
stronger  under  Trajan  than  under  Augustus;  and,  finally, 
as  the  Christian  group,  most  numerous  of  all,  impressed 
maternity  upon  its  cold  women,  the  empire  attained  its 
greatest  strength  under  the  Christian  ascendency  of  the 
fourth  century  a.d.  In  the  preface  to  East  and  West  Through 
Fifteen  Centuries ,  General  Young  asserts: 

“Another  main  point  on  which  this  history  differs  from 
others  has  regard  to  the  period  which  is  to  be  held  as  the 
zenith  of  the  Roman  Empire.  One  whose  name  justly 
stands  above  all  others  as  a  historian  has  considered  the 
zenith  of  the  Roman  Empire  to  be  the  period  of  the  Anton- 
ine  emperors  (Trajan,  Hadrian,  Antoninus  Pius,  and  Mar¬ 
cus  Aurelius),  and  that  its  decline  began  from  the  close  of 
that  period  in  a.d.  180;  his  dictum  has  been  followed  by  all 
subsequent  historians,  and  is  that  to  which  long  usage  has 
accustomed  us.  The  temerity  of  differing  from  such  an 
authority  on  such  a  point  is  great ;  but  this  history  ventures 
to  place  the  zenith  of  that  empire  in  the  period  from  Con¬ 
stantine  the  Great  to  Theodosius  the  Great  and  to  date  the 
beginning  of  its  decline  from  the  close  of  that  period  in  a.d. 
395 .  Only  when  viewed  from  the  standpoint  of  a  strong  bias 
against  Christianity,  such  as  Gibbon  possessed,  a  bias  suffic¬ 
iently  powerful  to  make  him  feel  that  the  mere  fact  of  the 
empire  being  Pagan  in  the  time  of  the  Antonine  emperors 
rendered  it  superior  to  the  same  empire  become  Christian, 
could  the  zenith  of  that  empire  be  held  to  be  in  the  time  of 
the  Antonine  emperors  and  its  decline  to  begin  from  a.d. 
180.  So  far  from  this  being  the  case  the  condition  of  the 
Roman  Empire  during  the  period  covered  by  the  reigns  of 
Trajan,  Hadrian,  Antoninus  Pius,  and  Marcus  Aurelius 
(roughly  the  2d  century)  was  surpassed,  and  in  every  respect, 


ROME 


89 


by  its  condition  during  the  period  covered  by  the  reigns  of 
Constantine,  Constantius,  Valentinian,  Gratian,  and  Theo¬ 
dosius  (roughly  the  4th  century).  Any  unprejudiced  ex¬ 
amination  will  show  that  it  was  in  the  4th  century  that  the 
empire  attained  its  zenith  and  not  in  the  2d  century.  Part 
of  the  3rd  century  was  a  time  of  misrule  and  disaster,  but 
this  had  been  more  than  retrieved  even  before  the  time  of  the 
Christian  emperors  began.  They  in  the  period  from  Con¬ 
stantine  to  Theodosius  carried  the  empire  to  a  higher  point 
than  it  had  ever  before  attained,  and  its  decline  must  be 
dated  from  the  close  of  that  period  in  a.d.  395,  and  not  from 
a.d.  180.”  (Gen.  G.  F.  Young,  East  and  West  Through 
Fifteen  Centuries ,  Preface,  p.  vii.) 

In  Chapter  XVI,  General  Young  repeats  this  assertion, 
and  examines  the  evidence  under  four  heads : 

1.  Military  strength.  2.  Splendour  of  cities.  3. 
Prosperity  of  the  people.  4.  General  standard  of  enlighten¬ 
ment  and  civilization. 

m 

His  examination  is  too  long  to  quote  here,  but  there  can  be 
no  doubt  that  he  proves  his  assertion,  and  that  the  decline 
of  the  empire  followed  its  Christianization,  and  did  not 
begin  under  the  pagan  emperors.  Up  to  the  time  of  Theo¬ 
dosius,  at  the  end  of  the  fourth  century,  Roman  troops  had 
successfully  defended  the  frontiers  of  the  empire,  and  had 
held  back  the  tide  of  barbarian  invasion.  General  Young 
thus  enumerates  their  battles  and  victories : 

“The  whole  of  the  battles  fought  by  Constantine  (more 
especially  those  at  Turin,  Verona,  Saxa  Rubra,  Cibalae, 
and  Hadrianople,  and  the  thorough  defeat  of  the  Gothic 
host  in  332),  the  hard-fought  battle  of  Mursa  under  Con¬ 
stantius  in  351 ,  the  splendid  series  of  victories  under  Julian 
over  the  Franks  and  Allemanni  in  356-359>  the  no  less 
splendid  conduct  of  the  Roman  army  in  the  retreat  from 
Persia  in  363,  the  victories  of  that  army  under  Valentinian 
on  the  Rhine,  in  Britain,  and  in  Africa,  including  in  particu¬ 
lar  its  behaviour  at  the  battle  of  Solicinium  in  368,  the  vic¬ 
tory  of  Colmar  under  Gratian  in  378,  the  victories  of  Theo¬ 
dosius  and  Gratian  over  the  Goths  in  379  and  380,  and  the 
victories  at  Siscia,  and  Pcetovio  under  Theodosius  in  388, 


go  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


give  an  overwhelming  refutation  to  the  assertion.”  (Gen. 
Young,  East  and  West  Through  Fifteen  Centuries ,  Chap. 
XVI.) 

From  this  evidence,  he  concludes  that  “never  in  the  whole 
course  of  its  history  was  the  Roman  army  at  so  high  a  pitch 
of  discipline,  training,  and  efficiency,  or  the  military  strength 
of  the  empire  so  great,  as  it  was  in  the  period  from  Constan¬ 
tine  to  Theodosius.” 

A  devout  Christian,  looking  upon  the  empire  at  the  close 
of  the  4th  century,  must  have  hoped  and  believed  that  the 
ancient  corruption  had  all  passed  away  and  that  virtue  had 
regenerated  its  people,  and  had  renewed  its  strength. 
Paganism  had  been  extinguished.  Constantine,  Valentin- 
ian,  Gratian  and  Theodosius  were  the  near  and  memorable 
heroes.  Caligula,  Nero,  Commodus,  Elagabalus,  were 
wicked  figures  of  a  corrupt  and  remote  age  which  had  long 
passed  away.  The  capital  of  the  empire  was  no  longer  at 
Rome;  and  none  of  the  later  emperors  were  Romans,  either 
by  birth  or  residence.1  The  laws  under  which  the  Empire 
was  ruled  might  be  dated  from  Constantinople,  from  Ni- 
comsedia,  from  Antioch,  from  Ravenna,  from  Milan,  from 
Treves,  or  from  a  remote  camp  on  the  Danube  or  the  Rhine; 
for  two  centuries  they  were  seldom  dated  from  Rome  itself. 

Many  of  these  emperors  were  sprung  from  the  hardy 
country  stock  of  distant  provinces.  Constantine  the  Great 
was  born  in  the  province  of  Dacia;  his  mother  was  the 

1  “  The  emperors  had  long  ceased  to  regard  themselves  as  belonging  to 
any  particular  country,  and  the  imperial  government  was  no  longer  in¬ 
fluenced  by  any  attachment  to  the  feelings  or  institutions  of  ancient 
Rome.  The  glories  of  the  republic  were  forgotten  in  the  constant  and 
laborious  duty  of  administering  and  defending  the  empire.”  (Finlay, 
Greece  under  the  Romans ,  Chap.  II.) 

“Diocletian  (285-305)  appears  to  have  visited  Rome  but  twice  in  his 
twenty  years’  reign.  The  first  time  was  in  303,  when  he  celebrated  there 
a  triumph.  It  is  notable  as  being  the  last  Roman  triumph  ever  cele¬ 
brated  by  a  Roman  emperor.  In  78  years  after  Constantine’s  visit  in 
326,  Rome  was  only  twice  visited  by  an  emperor,  by  Constantius  in 
357,  and  by  Theodosius  in  389.”  (Gen.  Young,  Chap.  XI  and  XVI.) 


ROME 


91 


daughter  of  an  innkeeper  of  Britain.  Trajan  and  Hadrian 
were  born  in  Spain;  Theodosius,  and  his  successors  in  the 
imperial  purple  for  eighty  years,  were  born  in  the  same 
province,  and  perhaps  in  the  same  tiny  city  of  Italica  near 
Seville.  The  Antonines  came  from  Gaul.  To  the  end  of  the 
4th  century  a.d.  the  Roman  legions  showed  undiminished 
vigor  and  courage,  and  the  Roman  arms  an  equal  success. 

53.  The  decline  of  the  common  people  of  the  Roman 
empire  was  a  Christian  not  a  pagan  decline.  The  Christian 
Church  was  co-extensive  with  the  imperial  boundaries,  and 
the  ecclesiastical  hierarchy  coordinated  its  power  with  that  of 
the  emperor  himself.  The  fall  of  the  western  empire  and  of 
Christian  civilization  cannot  be  ascribed  to  the  superstitious 
errors  of  the  pagan  religion,  to  the  corruption  of  the  city  of 
Rome,  to  the  deterioration  of  the  Roman  aristocracy,  to 
the  disuse  of  the  voting  power  by  the  Latin  tribes,  or  even 
to  the  wealth,  luxury,  and  vices  of  the  rich.  All  these  factors 
had  been  in  evidence  for  about  four  centuries,  and  some  of 
them  had  even  ceased  before  the  Christian  decline  took 
place.  At  the  end  of  the  fourth  century,  Christianity  had 
supplanted  paganism,  Rome  had  been  purified  of  vice,  the 
ancient  aristocracy  had  wholly  disappeared,  and  imperial 
taxation  had  impoverished  the  largest  fortunes  of  inherited 
wealth.  The  fall  of  the  Christian  empire  must  be  ascribed 
to  a  new  and  a  Christian  cause. 

The  events  at  the  end  of  the  fourth  century,  culminating 
in  the  capture  and  sacking  of  Rome  itself,  were  widely  differ¬ 
ent  from  anything  previously  witnessed  either  in  the  Roman 
republic,  or  in  the  empire,  and  are  evidence  of  a  new  cause 
which  was  operating  in  this  period.  The  differences  may  be 
classified  as : 

A.  Difference  in  the  number  and  extent  of  the  declining 
group. 

B.  Difference  in  the  rapidity  of  the  decline. 

In  respect  to  the  differences  of  group,  history  records, 
under  the  republic,  the  decline  first  of  the  ancient  Roman 
patrician  order,  second  of  the  Roman  plebeians;  and,  under 


92  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


the  empire,  the  decline  of  the  pagan  provincials,  and  the  rise 
of  the  Christians.  The  decline  at  the  end  of  the  fourth 
century  was  the  decline  of  the  whole  empire  itself — of  every 
class  of  society,  of  the  urban  and  rural  population  of  every 
province.  It  was  not  the  decline  of  a  group  inferior  in 
numbers  to  the  state  itself. 

The  ascendancy  of  the  patrician  order  was  maintained 
from  the  beginning  of  the  republic  to  the  close  of  the  third 
Punic  War  and  the  destruction  of  Carthage  under  Scipio 
Africanus,  b.c.  146.  Its  decline  occupied  the  period  from 
this  date  to  the  death,  in  b.c.  44,  of  Julius  Caesar,  the  last 
great  patrician  general,  or  about  one  hundred  years.  This 
period  included  the  victories  of  Lucullus  and  Pompey  the 
Great,  the  dictatorship  of  Sulla,  and  the  Gallic  Wars.  The 
decline  began  about  a  generation  after  the  emancipation  of 
patrician  women  first  affected  the  selection  of  patrician 
mothers.  The  decline  of  the  Latin  plebeians  extended 
through  the  period  from  the  victory  of  Marius  over  the 
Cimbri,  B.c.  102,  to  the  conquest  of  Britain  and  Mauretania 
in  the  middle  of  the  first  century  a.d.,  or  about  one  hundred 
and  fifty  years.  The  decline  of  the  provincials  under  the 
pagan  empire  required  also  about  one  hundred  and  fifty 
years,  from  the  victories  of  Trajan,  a.d.  ioi,  to  the  defeats 
and  disasters  under  Decius  and  Valerian,  a.d.  250-258. 

No  such  stretch  of  time  measures  the  decline  of  the 
Christian  empire.  It  was  a  debacle.  Observe  the  dates. 

a.d.  395 — Death  of  Theodosius.  The  empire’s  frontiers  are 
intact ;  the  Rhine  has  been  recently  and  newly  fortified 
(by  Valentinian,  after  signally  defeating  the  Germans 
in  371). 

a.d.  400-402 — The  frontiers  are  defended  by  a  barbarian 
army  led  by  Stilicho  a  barbarian  general. 
a.d.  407 — No  more  is  heard  of  the  Roman  army. 
a.d.  407 — Gaul  is  overrun. 

A.D.  408 — The  Visigoths  march,  unopposed,  through  Italy 
to  Rome. 


ROME 


93 


a.d.  410 — Rome  is  taken  and  sacked. 

a.d.  410 — Spain  is  lost. 

a.d.  415 — Britain  is  lost. 

a.d.  420 — Rhastia  and  Noricum  are  lost. 

a.d.  429 — Vandals  invade  North  Africa. 

Thus,  the  smaller  group  of  the  patricians  suffered  its 
decline  in  a  century ;  the  larger  groups  of  plebeians  and  pro¬ 
vincials  in  a  century  and  a  half ;  but  the  Christians,  largest 
group  of  all,  comprising  an  empire,  met  their  debacle  in  a 
generation.  The  decline  of  the  Non-Christian  groups  indi¬ 
cates  that,  in  their  cases,  posterity  suffered  a  gradual  sub¬ 
traction  of  noble  qualities,  so  that  each  generation  was  some¬ 
what  inferior  to  its  progenitors.  But  the  debacle  of  the 
Christian  group  cannot  be  attributed  to  a  process  of  sub¬ 
traction  or  to  a  gradual  decay.  Its  fall  was  too  sudden,  too 
complete,  to  be  satisfactorily  accounted  for  by  attrition. 
Neither  can  it  be  ascribed  to  a  sudden  increase  in  the  power 
or  numbers  of  the  hostile  barbarians.  The  same  frontiers 
that  were  successfully  defended  to  the  last  decade  of  the 
fourth  century,  crumbled  before  the  assaults  of  the  same 
barbarians  in  the  first  decade  of  the  fifth.  Moreover,  sep¬ 
arate  provinces  like  Britain  and  Spain,  the  one  defended  by 
the  seas,  the  other  by  a  mountain  chain,  were  lost,  almost 
without  a  struggle,  to  barbarians  who  were  fighting  far 
from  their  base.  The  fall  of  the  Christian  empire  must  be 
attributed  to  a  new  cause ;  it  must  have  been  a  cause  which 
operated  upon  all  the  populations  alike,  and  which  was 
sufficiently  potent  to  reverse  in  a  single  generation  the 
character  of  posterity. 

54.  This  new  cause,  coextensive  with  the  Church,  and 
therefore  with  the  empire,  may  be  found  in  the  new  Chris¬ 
tian  practice  of  the  religious  sterilization  of  the  pious.  In 
the  fourth  century,  the  Christian  fathers,  the  most  revered 
of  their  faith,  and  the  heads  of  the  Church,  preached  a  new 
doctrine,  which  was  speedily  and  eagerly  embraced  by  the 
whole  Christian  world.  This  doctrine  was  that  celibacy  and 


94  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


virginity  only,  were  pleasing  to  God.  It  was  taught  that 
marriage  was  a  compromise  with  sin;  a  worldly  indulgence 
in  lust;  that  it  was  unworthy  for  the  best  Christians  and  a 
distinct  fall  from  the  immaculate  ideals  of  the  Church. 

“It  was  their  favorite  opinion,  that  if  Adam  had  pre¬ 
served  his  obedience  to  the  Creator,  he  would  have  lived 
forever  in  a  state  of  virgin  purity,  and  that  some  harmless 
mode  of  vegetation  might  have  peopled  paradise  with  a  race 
of  innocent  and  immortal  beings.  The  use  of  marriage  was 
permitted  only  to  his  fallen  posterity,  as  a  necessary  exped¬ 
ient  to  continue  the  human  species,  and  as  a  restraint,  how¬ 
ever  imperfect,  on  the  natural  licentiousness  of  desire.” 
(Gibbon,  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire,  Chapter 
XV.) 

The  doctrine  of  the  religious  sterilization  of  the  pious, 
originating  in  the  provinces  south  of  the  Mediterranean 
(probably  in  Egypt),  was  in  341  a.d.,  brought  to  Rome  and 
rapidly  spread  to  every  corner  of  the  empire,  infecting  every 
city,  every  province,  and  every  class  of  the  population. 
Everywhere,  religious  houses  and  retreats  were  filled  with 
the  male  and  female  votaries  of  celibacy.  Read  the  evidence 
from  the  pages  of  Gibbon. 

“The  prolific  colonies  of  monks  multiplied  with  rapid  in¬ 
crease  on  the  sands  of  Libya,  upon  the  rocks  of  Thebais,  and 
in  the  cities  of  the  Nile.  To  the  south  of  Alexandria,  the 
mountain,  and  adjacent  desert  of  Nitra  was  peopled  by 
five  thousand  anachorets;  and  the  traveller  may  still  in¬ 
vestigate  the  ruins  of  fifty  monasteries,  which  were  planted 
in  that  barren  soil  by  the  disciples  of  Antony.  In  the  Upper 
Thebais,  the  vacant  island  of  Tabenne  was  occupied  by 
Pachomius  and  fourteen  hundred  of  his  brethren.  That  holy 
abbot  successively  founded  nine  monasteries  of  men,  and 
one  of  women;  and  the  festival  of  Easter  sometimes  col¬ 
lected  fifty  thousand  religious  persons,  who  followed  his 
angelic  rule  of  discipline.  The  stately  and  populous  city  of 
Oxyrinchus,  the  seat  of  Christian  orthodoxy,  had  devoted 
the  temples,  the  public  edifices,  and  even  the  ramparts,  to 
pious  and  charitable  uses;  and  the  bishop,  who  might  preach 
in  twelve  churches,  computed  ten  thousand  females,  and 
twenty  thousand  males,  of  the  monastic  profession.  The 


ROME 


95 


Egyptians,  who  gloried  in  this  marvellous  revolution,  were 
disposed  to  hope,  and  to  believe,  that  the  number  of  the 
monks  was  equal  to  the  remainder  of  the  people;  and  pos¬ 
terity  might  repeat  the  saying  which  had  formerly  been 
applied  to  the  sacred  animals  of  the  same  country,  that  in 
Egypt  it  was  less  difficult  to  find  a  god  than  a  man. 

Athanasius,  (a.d.  293-373),  introduced  into  Rome  the 
knowledge  and  practice  of  the  monastic  life ;  and  a  school  of 
this  new  philosophy  was  opened  by  the  disciples  of  Antony, 
who  accompanied  their  primate  to  the  holy  threshold  of  the 
Vatican.  The  strange  and  savage  appearance  of  these 
Egyptians  excited,  at  first,  horror  and  contempt,  and,  at 
length,  applause  and  zealous  imitation.  The  senators,  and 
more  especially  the  matrons,  transformed  their  palaces  and 
villas  into  religious  houses ;  and  the  narrow  institution  of  six 
Vestals  was  eclipsed  by  the  frequent  monasteries,  which 
were  seated  on  the  ruins  of  ancient  temples  and  in  the  midst 
of  the  Roman  forum.”  (Gibbon,  Decline  and  Fall  of  the 
Roman  Empire ,  Chap.  XXXVII.) 

“But  the  monasteries  were  filled  by  a  crowd  of  obscure 
and  abject  plebeians,  who  gained  in  the  cloister  much  more 
than  they  had  sacrificed  in  the  world.  Peasants,  slaves,  and 
mechanics  might  escape  from  poverty  and  contempt  to  a 
safe  and  honourable  profession,  whose  apparent  hardships 
were  mitigated  by  custom,  by  popular  applause,  and  by  the 
secret  relaxation  of  discipline.  The  subjects  of  Rome,  whose 
persons  and  fortunes  were  made  responsible  for  unequal  and 
exorbitant  tributes,  retired  from  the  oppression  of  the 
Imperial  government;  and  the  pusillanimous  youth  pre¬ 
ferred  the  penance  of  a  monastic,  to  the  dangers  of  a  military 
life.  The  affrighted  provincials  of  every  rank,  who  fled 
before  the  barbarians,  found  shelter  and  subsistence ;  whole 
legions  were  buried  in  these  religious  sanctuaries;  and 
the  same  cause  which  relieved  the  distress  of  individuals 
impaired  the  strength  and  fortitude  of  the  empire.” 
(Ibid.) 

Thus,  the  monastic  life  swept  through  the  empire  like  a 
pestilence,  attacking  both  sexes,  all  ages,  all  classes  of 
society,  the  rural  and  the  urban  population,  the  poor  equally 
with  the  rich.  Everywhere,  it  provided  for  cold  women  a 
refuge  from  repugnant  coverture,  a  retreat  where,  with  the 
sanction  of  the  Church,  with  the  applause  of  society,  and 


96  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


with  the  approbation  of  their  parents  and  friends  they  might 
escape  from  marriage  and  motherhood.  The  enforced 
maternity  of  these  women  entirely  ceased.  Piety,  devotion, 
abnegation,  continence,  obedience,  and  virtue  were  con¬ 
sidered  synonymous  with  virginity,  sterility,  monasticism. 
Their  possessors,  because  of  religious  motives,  withdrew 
from  those  carnal  relations  which  alone  could  give  them 
children  to  inherit  their  virtues.  That  residuum  of  the 
population  least  moved  by  piety  or  religious  zeal,  not  mak¬ 
ing  vows  of  continence  or  of  chastity,  nor  keeping  them  if 
made,  was  left  to  replenish  the  earth.  In  the  brief  period  of 
two  generations,  the  perennial  sterilization  of  the  virtuous 
completely  changed  the  character  of  the  population.  Con¬ 
science  subtracted  conscience  from  the  race.  Wherever  the 
Christian  religion  was  most  successfully  preached  and  was 
most  devoutly  believed,  each  successive  generation  of  men 
and  women  were  more  debased  than  their  predecessors. 

55.  From  the  completeness  and  the  rapidity  of  the 
Christian  decline,  mathematical  law  would  expect  to  find 
the  Christian  group  influenced  by  a  factor  stronger  and 
more  universal  than  any  of  the  group  factors  which,  in  earlier 
Roman  history,  had  caused  the  slower  fall  of  the  smaller 
pagan  groups.  The  evidence  here  given  exactly  meets  this 
expectation.  The  colder  women  of  the  earlier  pagan  groups 
escaped  marriage  and  maternity  through  their  selfishness, 
luxury,  and  vice.  The  least  selfish,  the  least  wealthy,  or  the 
least  vicious,  might  still  be  fruitful;  so  that  the  decline  of 
these  groups  was  gradual  and  partial,  having  been  retarded 
by  the  continued  fruitfulness  of  the  least  vicious  or  the  least 
cold.  In  the  Christian  communion  of  the  fourth  century,  the 
immediate  cause  of  decline  was  reversed.  A  sterile  virginity 
was  urged  upon  the  faithful  as  meritorious  in  itself,  pleasing 
to  God,  and  the  attainment  of  the  highest  ideals  of  the 
Church.  Instead  of  sterilizing  the  most  selfish  and  the  most 
vicious,  it  subtracted  from  posterity  the  most  religious 
and  the  most  holy.  The  institutions  where  sterility  was 
consecrated  were  called  “religious  houses,”  their  inmates 


ROME 


97 


known  as  “religious.”  The  Christian  decline  was  as  much 
swifter  than  the  pagan  decline,  as  piety  is  stronger  than 
vice. 

The  chronological  evidence  of  history  is  not  less  impor¬ 
tant.  The  dates  of  the  new  doctrine  and  the  decline  of  the 
Christian  power  follow  exactly  in  the  order  expected.  It  was 
in  341  a.d.  that  the  religious  sterilization  of  the  pious  was 
brought  by  Athanasius  to  Rome,  whence  it  swiftly  spread 
to  the  European  provinces.  During  the  next  generation,  the 
colder  virgins  of  the  Christian  empire  refused  to  become  the 
fruitful  brides  of  men,  and  became  the  sterile  brides  of 
Christ.  It  was  during  this  generation  that  there  must  be 
born  those  children  who  would  constitute  the  legions  of 
fighting  men  necessary  for  imperial  defense  in  the  last  quar¬ 
ter  of  the  fourth  century  and  at  the  beginning  of  the  fifth. 
It  was  precisely  in  this  period,  that  is  from  the  reign  of  Gra- 
tian  (375-383)  onward,  that  the  Roman  troops  became  im¬ 
potent,  unable  to  bear  arms  or  armor,  and  that  the  Roman 
army  finally  disappeared.  If  it  be  supposed  that  the  spread 
of  monasticism  from  Rome  to  the  empire’s  European  prov¬ 
inces  occupied  twenty-five  years,  then  the  quarter  of  a 
century  from  the  death  of  Gratian  to  the  total  disappearance 
of  the  Roman  army  follows  with  chronological  exactness. 
It  was  during  the  reign  of  Gratian  that  the  impotence  of 
Christian  troops  began  to  be  noticed,  and  it  was  twenty- 
five  years  later  that  the  Roman  army  disappeared. 

“It  is  the  just  and  important  observation  of  Vegetius, 
that  the  infantry  was  invariably  covered  with  defensive 
armour  from  the  foundation  of  the  city  to  the  reign  of  the 
emperor  Gratian.  The  relaxation  of  discipline  and  the  dis¬ 
use  of  exercise  rendered  the  soldiers  less  able  and  less  willing 
to  support  the  fatigues  of  the  service;  they  complained  of 
the  weight  of  the  armour,  which  they  seldom  wore ;  and  they 
successively  obtained  the  permission  of  laying  aside  both 
their  cuirasses  and  their  helmets.  The  heavy  weapons  of 
their  ancestors,  the  short  sword  and  the  formidable  pilum , 
which  had  subdued  the  world,  insensibly  dropped  from  their 
feeble  hands.”  (Gibbon,  Ibid.,  Chap.  XXVII.) 


VOL.  1 — 7 


98  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


In  the  campaign  of  400-402  the  imperial  troops  were 
barbarians,  led  by  Stilicho  a  barbarian  general.  In  404, 
Rome  celebrated  for  the  last  time  a  victory  over  foreign 
invaders.  In  406,  the  Christian  army  disappeared. 

“  It  is  strange  how  rapidly  at  this  period  the  Roman  army 
in  the  West  disappears.  After  the  operations  in  Tuscany 
in  405  and  those  in  southern  Gaul  in  406  no  more  is  heard  of 
it.  When  in  408  the  Visigoths  for  the  second  time  advance 
through  Italy  to  attack  Rome  no  army  bars  their  way.  In 
the  thirteen  years  from  the  time  of  the  death  of  Theodosius 
the  Great  an  army  of  250,000  men,  comprising  the  best 
fighting  troops  of  the  whole  empire  and  many  notable 
Roman  legions  with  long  and  glorious  traditions,  who  could 
inscribe  on  their  standards  a  long  list  of  victories,  many  of 
them  gained  only  a  few  years  before,  simply  vanishes. 
There  is  no  longer  a  field  army.  Henceforth  the  Goths 
make  their  attacks  against  the  cities,  but  of  the  army,  which 
from  the  mouth  of  the  Rhine  to  Belgrade  had  stood  in  de¬ 
fence  of  the  Roman  dominions  and  which,  had  it  still  ex¬ 
isted  would  have  opposed  these  foes  in  the  field,  no  vestige 
remains.”  (Gen.  Young,  East  and  West  Through  Fifteen 
Centuries ,  Chap.  XVII.) 

56.  At  the  beginning  of  the  fourth  century,  the  constitu¬ 
tion  of  the  empire  had  become  oriental;  the  diversity  of 
authority,  customs,  and  laws  of  the  different  provinces  was 
abolished.  In  the  first  half  of  the  fourth  century,  a  new 
inquisitorial  criminal  procedure  was  substituted  for  the 
accusatory  procedure  of  Roman  law.  The  new  criminal 
procedure  imposed  the  will  of  the  government  upon  all  its 
subjects,  changing  substantive  law  from  a  definition  of  a 
cause  of  action  to  a  rule  imposing  universal  obedience.  An 
oriental  system  of  taxation  swept,  annually,  into  the  im¬ 
perial  treasury  all  the  gains  of  industry,  so  that  the  sub¬ 
jects  of  the  empire  could  no  longer  accumulate  wealth. 
Finally,  Christianity  was  imposed  by  an  absolute  govern¬ 
ment  upon  all  its  subjects,  so  that  the  diversity  of  religious 
groups  entirely  ceased. 

In  temporal  matters,  therefore,  the  geographical  area 


ROME 


99 


covered  by  the  Roman  empire  presented  at  this  time  an 
aspect  of  singular  uniformity  in  contrast  to  the  continuous 
diversity  which  had  prevailed  for  a  thousand  years.  The 
imperial  subjects  constituted  but  a  single  group  reduced  to 
a  common  impotence,  to  an  equal  poverty,  to  a  single  re¬ 
ligion,  and  to  a  universal  obedience  to  imperial  rule.  In 
spiritual  matters,  this  single  group  was  now  taught  and 
eagerly  received  the  doctrine  of  the  monastic  life.  For  all 
its  members  who  were  Christians  by  spiritual  conviction, 
this  doctrine  sterilized  the  most  pious  and  particularly  the 
most  chaste.  For  the  remainder  of  the  population,  Chris¬ 
tian  only  by  imperial  decree,  it  offered  to  all  who  could  resist 
sexual  temptation  a  refuge  from  danger  and  want.  It  was 
in  the  last  half  of  the  fourth  century  that  this  doctrine  swept 
the  empire.  It  was  this  generation  of  the  imperial  subjects 
whose  children  were  to  be  of  age  to  fight  in  the  first  decade 
of  the  fifth  century.  And  it  was  in  the  first  decade  of  the 
fifth  century  that  no  fighting  men  appeared.  The  pagans 
among  the  imperial  subjects  had  long  adopted  those  lax 
sexual  unions  which  reproduced  only  ardent  and  willing 
mothers.  The  Christians  had  now  sterilized  their  cold 
women  by  preaching  to  them  the  holiness  of  virginity.  In 
a  single  generation,  the  spirit  of  the  imperial  population  had 
changed  from  European  to  oriental. 

When  Lucullus  beat  an  army  of  Asiatics  twenty  times  the 
number  of  his  own  forces  “the  Romans  could  not  but  blush,” 
says  Strabo,  “and  deride  themselves  for  putting  on  armour 
against  such  pitiful  slaves.”  At  the  end  of  the  fourth 
century,  the  Christian  empire  had  copied  Asia  in  every 
respect — in  government,  in  criminal  procedure,  in  taxation, 
and  in  the  selection  of  ardent  women  for  motherhood.  In 
the  next  generation  the  Christians  were  only  pitiful  slaves. 


CHAPTER  VI 


EASTERN  EMPIRE 

57.  Despite  the  fall  of  the  Western  Empire  of  Rome, 
the  barbarian  invasion  left  nearly  untouched  the  vast  and 
populous  area  of  the  Eastern  Empire  ruled  from  Con¬ 
stantinople. 

‘‘That  empire,  after  Rome  was  barbarous,  still  embraced 
the  nations  whom  she  had  conquered  beyond  the  Hadriatic, 
and  as  far  as  the  frontiers  of  Ethiopia  and  Persia.  Justinian 
reigned  over  sixty-four  provinces  and  nine  hundred  and 
thirty-five  cities ;  his  dominions  were  blessed  by  nature  with 
the  advantages  of  soil,  situation,  and  climate,  and  the  im¬ 
provements  of  human  art  had  been  perpetually  diffused 
along  the  coast  of  the  Mediterranean  and  the  banks  of  the 
Nile  from  ancient  Troy  to  the  Egyptian  Thebes.  Abraham 
had  been  relieved  by  the  well-known  plenty  of  Egypt;  the 
same  country,  a  small  and  populous  tract,  was  still  capable 
of  exporting  each  year  two  hundred  and  sixty  thousand 
quarters  of  wheat  for  the  use  of  Constantinople;  and  the 
capital  of  Justinian  was  supplied  with  the  manufactures  of 
Sidon  fifteen  centuries  after  they  had  been  celebrated  in  the 
poems  of  Homer.  The  annual  powers  of  vegetation,  in¬ 
stead  of  being  exhausted  by  two  thousand  harvests,  were 
renewed  and  invigorated  by  skilful  husbandry,  rich  manure, 
and  seasonable  repose.  The  breed  of  domestic  animals  was 
infinitely  multiplied.  Plantations,  buildings,  and  the  in¬ 
struments  of  labour  and  luxury,  which  are  more  durable 
than  the  term  of  human  life,  were  accumulated  by  the  care 
of  successive  generations.  Tradition  preserved,  and  experi¬ 
ence  simplified,  the  humble  practice  of  the  arts;  society  was 
enriched  by  the  division  of  labour  and  the  facility  of  ex¬ 
change;  and  every  Roman  was  lodged,  clothed,  and  sub¬ 
sisted  by  the  industry  of  a  thousand  hands.”  (Gibbon, 
Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire ,  Chapter  XL.) 


100 


EASTERN  EMPIRE 


IOI 


Here,  then,  was  a  great,  an  old,  a  wealthy,  a  learned,  a 
populous,  and  a  Christian  region  where  civilization  was 
scarcely  afflicted  by  the  rude  savages  of  the  North.  Twelve 
centuries  earlier,  the  Romans,  in  a  rude  and  tiny  city,  had, 
seemingly  fortuitously,  certainly  unconsciously,  adopted 
the  means  of  psychological  selection  which  so  augmented 
the  spirit  of  succeeding  generations  that  they  became  in 
time  the  masters  of  the  world.  In  the  6th  century  a.d.,  the 
powers  and  the  opportunities  of  the  Eastern  Empire  ex¬ 
ceeded,  beyond  comparison  or  computation,  the  powers  or 
opportunities  of  Rome  six  centuries  before  Christ.  Yet 
the  Eastern  Empire  as  steadily  declined  as  Rome  had 
steadily  advanced.  The  decline  of  the  one  was  no  less  cer¬ 
tain,  and  its  causes  no  less  natural,  than  the  advance  of  the 
other.  These  causes  will  be  apparent  in  the  contrast  which 
history  exhibits  between  the  government  and  the  social 
usages  of  the  Eastern  Empire  and  the  government  and 
social  usages  of  early  Rome. 

58.  The  Eastern  empire  was  rich  and  powerful  only  in 
material  and  visible  things.  In  spiritual  and  invisible 
things  it  was  as  poor  as  early  Rome  had  been  rich ;  and  by 
the  religious  sterilization  of  the  chaste  and  pious  it  was  con¬ 
tinuously  impoverished.  There  was  no  augmentation  of 
the  nervous  organization,  no  spiritual  life  or  growth,  no  in¬ 
crease  of  spiritual  stature.  Its  inhabitants  called  them¬ 
selves  Romans,  and  its  Church  called  itself  Christian;  but 
the  outstanding  fact  of  its  history  for  a  thousand  years  was 
the  entire  repudiation  of  everything  which  distinguished 
Rome  from  an  Asiatic  despotism,  and  Christianity  from  an 
oriental  religion. 

From  the  reign  of  Constantine  down  to  its  capture  by  the 
Ottoman  Turks,  Constantinople  was  the  capital  of  an  em¬ 
pire  that  retained  and  perfected  the  Asiatic  cast  of  govern¬ 
ment  which  it  had  inherited  from  the  reign  of  Diocletian. 
Its  substantive  and  adjective  law,  its  relations  of  ruler  and 
subject,  its  administration,  taxation,  criminal  procedure, 
rights  of  life  and  liberty  and  property,  the  servile  obedience 


102  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


and  lethal  conformity  imposed  upon  its  freemen,  even  its 
slavery  and  gelded  slaves,  all  were  Asiatic.  So  also  was 
its  Church.  Christian  by  name,  it  abandoned  spiritual 
truth,  spiritual  worship,  spiritual  guidance,  spiritual 
weapons,  spiritual  life,  all  the  vast  spiritual  field  that 
separated  and  distinguished  the  teachings  of  Jesus  from  the 
older  religions  of  the  East.  From  these  it  turned  to  an 
idolatrous  worship  of  visible  things,  and  to  a  cruel  theology 
supported  by  carnal  weapons,  a  pompous  ritual,  an  impos¬ 
ing  hierarchy,  and  a  merciless  inquisition.  All  things 
temporal  and  spiritual  were  controlled  by  government 
and  Church,  which  together  enforced  on  a  servile  and 
spiritless  population  uniform  obedience  to  secular  and 
sacerdotal  commands.  The  empire’s  laws  were  fixed 
in  codes,  its  theology  in  dogmas,  its  worship  in  im¬ 
ages,  and  every  successive  generation  was  born  to  a 
slavish  obedience  to  these  visible  things.  Each  child 
opened  its  eyes  on  the  unchanging  aspects  of  an  Asiatic 
world. 

In^examining  the  causes  for  the  rise  of  pagan  Rome  and 
of  the  first  three  centuries  of  the  Christian  communion, 
the  same  factor  was  found  in  operation  in  each  of  the  rising 
groups.  Likewise  in  examining  the  causes  for  the  decline 
of  the  Roman  patricians,  next  of  the  Roman  plebeians,  and 
lastly  of  the  provincial  pagans,  the  same  factor  was  found 
operating  on  all  three  groups.  It  appears  again  in  full 
operation  in  the  decline  of  the  last  Christian  group  of  the 
Western  empire  which  brought  that  empire  to  its  close. 
The  fall  of  Christian  civilization  in  the  West  was  hastened 
and  dramatized  by  the  catastrophe  of  barbarian  invasion. 
The  decline  of  Christian  civilization  in  the  Eastern  empire 
was  the  effect  of  internal  spiritual  decay  without  the  crush¬ 
ing  impact  of  barbarian  invasion.  An  examination  of 
the  declining  Eastern  empire  then  would  be  expected  to 
disclose : 

I.  That  the  factors  which  had  caused  the  rise  of  suc¬ 
cessive  groups  in  pagan  Rome,  and  of  the  Christian  group 


EASTERN  EMPIRE 


103 


for  the  first  three  centuries,  would  be  found  wanting  in  the 
Eastern  empire,  and 

II  That  the  factors  which  had  caused  the  decline  of 
each  successive  pagan  group,  and  finally  of  the  Christian 
empire  of  the  West,  would  be  found  present  in  the  Christian 
empire  of  the  East. 

History  justifies  these  mathematical  expectations. 

59.  The  decline  of  the  Eastern  empire  must  be  ascribed 
to  its  spiritual  decay ;  and  the  underlying  cause  of  this  was 
the  adverse  selection  of  mothers.  The  orthodox  Christian 
Church  legalized  and  enforced  the  worship  of  all  its  in¬ 
habitants,  directed  their  modes  of  thought,  spied  upon  their 
opinions,  speech,  letters,  and  conduct.  Non-conformity 
was  a  sin  visited  with  spiritual  penance  and  a  crime  punish¬ 
able  by  the  secular  powers.  An  Asiatic  criminal  procedure 
enabled  Christian  emperors  of  the  East  to  extinguish  re¬ 
ligious  diversity  as  it  had  never  been  extinguished  by  the 
pagan  emperors  of  the  West.  In  the  profession  of  religion, 
the  Eastern  empire  was  a  single  group,  so  that  the  Church’s 
errors  afflicted  alike  all  classes  of  its  inhabitants  and  every 
succeeding  generation.  First  of  these  in  time  and  impor¬ 
tance  was  the  religious  sterilization  of  cold  women. 

In  examining  the  causes  for  the  rise  of  pagan  Rome  under 
the  laws  of  Numa,  of  the  Christian  Church  during  its 
first  three  centuries,  and  of  the  decline  of  the  Eastern  em¬ 
pire  while  professedly  Christian,  this  is  the  historical  differ¬ 
ence  that  first  meets  the  eye:  The  Romans  under  Numa, 
and  the  Christians  for  three  centuries,  augmented  the 
spirit  of  each  succeeding  generation  by  a  favorable  selection 
of  mothers ;  while  the  Christians  of  the  Eastern  empire  after 
the  fourth  century  continuously  debased  the  spirit  of  poster¬ 
ity  by  an  unfavorable  selection  of  mothers.  The  Church 
exalted  the  spiritual  value  of  sterility  and  looked  upon  mar¬ 
riage  as  only  the  carnal  union  of  man  and  woman,  mutually 
animated  by  the  same  desires.  Accordingly,  neither 
ecclesiastical  nor  secular  authority  was  exerted  in  favor  of 
indissoluble  monogamous  marriage;  and  free  divorce  was 


104  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


sanctioned  by  Church  and  state.1  “The  successor  of 
Justinian  yielded  to  the  prayers  of  his  unhappy  subjects 
and  restored  the  liberty  of  divorce  by  mutual  consent.” 
(Gibbon,  Ibid.,  Chap.  XLIX.) 

Thus,  the  cold  woman’s  escape  from  unwelcome  mother¬ 
hood  was  made  easy,  honorable,  and  certain.  If  she  was 
pious,  she  joined  a  convent,  and  did  not  marry  at  all.  If 
she  was  selfish  and  worldly,  she  divorced  the  husband  who 
would  have  made  her  fruitful.  Religious  and  worldly 
sterilization  completely  extinguished  sexual  coldness,  and 
with  it  the  augmented  nervous  organizations  by  which 
civilizations  rise.  From  this  one  underlying  cause,  which 
was  not  only  active  but  increased  with  each  succeeding 
generation,  developed  all  the  minor  and  later  symptoms  of 
spiritual  decay  in  national  and  religious  life. 

60.  Convents  and  divorce  more  effectively  sterilized 
the  cold  women  of  Constantinople  and  of  the  other  luxuri¬ 
ous  cities  of  the  empire,  than  of  the  rude  inhabitants  of 
remote  provinces.  In  the  cities,  there  was  no  class  of  the 
population  which  enjoyed  a  favorable  selection  of  mothers. 
Among  the  rich,  religious  conformity  and  economic  inde¬ 
pendence  combined  to  sterilize  women  of  augmented 
nervous  organization.  Among  the  poor,  consisting  of  a 
rationed  proletariat,  the  constant  equality  of  subsistence 
received  from  governmental  bounty  gave  a  continuous  ad¬ 
vantage  to  the  groups  of  low  nervous  organization,  whose 
prolific  women  bore  easily  children  with  smaller  heads. 
In  the  heart  of  the  empire  the  security  from  the  hostile  in¬ 
cursions  of  pagans  preserved  the  regular  administration  of 
the  laws,  and  the  unbroken  orthodoxy  of  the  Church;  and 
both  of  these  were  inimical  to  the  compulsory  maternity  of 
cold  women.  Near  the  borders  of  the  empire,  none  of  these 

1  “A  Christian  writer,  at  the  beginning  of  the  fifth  century,  complains 
that  men  changed  their  wives  as  quickly  as  their  clothes,  and  that  mar¬ 
riage  chambers  were  set  up  as  easily  as  booths  in  a  market."  (Milman, 
History  of  Christianity ,  Bk.  IV,  Chap.  I.)  This  was  a  century  after  the 
empire  had  become  Christian  and  a  century  before  the  reign  of  Justinian. 


EASTERN  EMPIRE 


105 


conditions  could  be  maintained.  Invasion  upset  the  au¬ 
thority  of  both  Church  and  state,  interrupted  the  adminis¬ 
tration  of  the  laws  and  the  search  for  heresy,  destroyed 
religious  houses,  and  conferred  religious  freedom  upon  the 
inhabitants  whose  lives  it  threatened.  Most  of  these  in¬ 
habitants  were  poor,  rude  and  unlettered  pioneers;  but, 
also,  most  of  them  were  free,  and  none  of  them  were  ra¬ 
tioned.  It  would  be  expected,  therefore,  that  such  genius 
and  valor  as  the  empire  enjoyed  was  contributed  by  this 
class;  and  that  the  servile  inhabitants  of  the  cities  were 
continuously  ruled  by  a  succession  of  emperors  and  dynas¬ 
ties  sprung  from  the  poorest  of  the  people  and  from  the 
more  remote  parts  of  the  empire.  This  expectation  history 
proves  correct.  In  the  long  succession  of  eight  centuries  it 
is  impossible  to  find  a  dynasty  whose  origin  can  be  traced  to 
the  Greek  aristocracy  or  “upper  classes ”  of  the  empire.  Of 
all  the  nicknames  by  which  successive  emperors  were 
designated  only  once  does  there  appear  “Porphyrogenitus,” 
or  “born  in  the  purple.”  The  empire  was  never  ruled  by 
a  family  sprung  from  its  capital. 

The  record  begins  with  Marcian  in  the  fifth  century  and 
continues  to  the  reign  of  Baldwin,  Count  of  Flanders  in  the 
thirteenth. 


I. — 450-457  Marcian 

A  Thracian  of  humble  birth. 

II. — 457-473  Leo  the  Butcher 

Another  Thracian. 

III.  — 474-491  Zeno ,  the  Isaurian 

Regarded  by  the  Greeks  as  a 
barbarian. 

IV. — 491-518  Anastasius  I 

Called  Dicorus,  native  of  Epidamnus. 

V.— 518-527  Justin  I 

A  Thracian  peasant  from  Tauresium 
who  entered  the  imperial  guard  as  a  common  soldier. 1 


1  It  is  interesting  to  observe  that  all  these  five  emperors  were  past 
middle  age,  and  some  of  them  were  old  men,  when  they  ascended  the 


io6  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


VI. — 527-602  Justinian  Dynasty 

Justinian  was  born  near  a  city  now 
called  Sophia  in  the  present  kingdom  of  Bulgaria 
of  a  Sclavonic  family.  “His  father’s  name  was 
Istok,  of  which  Sabbatios  is  a  translation.  His 
mother  and  sister  were  named  Wiglenitza.  His 
own  native  name  was  Uprawda,  corresponding  to 
jus,  JustitiaT  (Finlay,  Greece  Under  the  Romans, 
Chap.  Ill,  Sect.  I.) 


VII . — 602-6 1  o — Phocas 

A  centurion  of  such  obscure  condi¬ 
tion  that  the  emperor  Maurice  was  ignorant  of 
the  name  of  his  rival. 


VIII. — 610-716  Heraclian  Dynasty 

Heraclius  was  the  son  of  an  exarch 
of  Africa. 


IX.— 717-797  I  saurian  Dynasty 

Leo  the  Isaurian  was  an  itinerant 
peddler,  a  native  of  Isauria. 

X. — 802-820  Nicephorus 

Born  in  Seleucia,  name  unknown  to 
people. 

Michael,  son-in-law  of  Nicephorus. 
Leo  the  Armenian,  General  in  the 
army. 


XI. — 820-867  Amorian  Dynasty 

Michael  II  (the  Stammerer),  born 
in  the  lowest  ranks  of  society  in 
Amorium,  entered  the  army  as  a 


throne.  Marcian  was  58;  Leo  I,  47;  Zeno,  48;  Anastasius,  60;  and 
Justin,  68.  This  is  important  evidence  of  the  decline  of  genius  from 
an  unfavorable  selection  of  mothers.  When  the  selection  of  mothers  is 
favorable,  genius  is  continually  appearing  in  young  men,  and  each  new 
generation,  as  it  is  superior  to  the  old,  crowds  rapidly  into  power.  This 
is  observable  in  all  rising  civilizations.  Roman  history  from  the  begin¬ 
ning  of  the  Republic  to  Pompey  the  Great  is  studded  with  the  names  of 
young  men.  Italy  furnishes  the  same  testimony  in  the  thirteenth,  four¬ 
teenth,  and  fifteenth  centuries,  and  England  and  France  from  the  six¬ 
teenth  to  the  nineteenth  century.  When  genius  no  longer  appears  in 
the  young  and  the  new  generation  does  not  crowd  out  the  old,  it  is 
certain  evidence  of  a  declining  civilization. 


EASTERN  EMPIRE 


107 


private,  quickly  rose  to  the  rank 
of  general. 

Theophilus,  his  son,  well-educated. 
Michael  III ,  son  of  Theophilus, 
called  “The  Drunkard.” 

* 

XII. — 867-1057  Basilian  Dynasty 

Basil  the  Macedonian ,  born  in 
Adrianople  on  a  small  farm,  educated  a  slave  in  a 
foreign  land  after  capture  by  the  Bulgarians,  won 
freedom  after  defeating  two  armies  of  barbarians 
with  other  Roman  youths  at  the  Euxine  and  arrived 
in  Constantinople  without  friends  or  money. 

Leo  VI,  his  son. 

Alexander,  brother  of  Leo. 
Constantine  VII  (Porphyrogenitus) 
nephew  of  Alexander. 

Romanus  II,  son  of  Constantine. 

XIII.  — 1059-1204  Comnenian  Dynasty 

Isaac  I,  son  of  Manuel,  general, 
patrimonial  estate  in  district  of  Castamona  near 
the  Euxine — wealthy  family. 

Alexius — his  nephew. 

John — son  of  Alexius. 

Manuel — son  of  John. 

Alexius  II — son  of  Manuel. 
Androniclus — son  of  Alexius  I. 

Isaac  Angelus — grandson  of  An¬ 
droniclus. 

XIV.  — 1204-1222  Houses  of  Flanders  and  Courtenay 

All  of  the  Western  not  the  Eastern 
church. 

61.  In  the  rise  of  pagan  Rome,  and  of  the  Christian  com¬ 
munion  for  three  centuries,  there  was  always  present  a  free 
proletariat,  whose  spiritual  character  was  continuously  im¬ 
proving.  In  the  cities,  the  urban  proletariat  began,  from  the 
time  of  Augustus,  to  be  rationed  by  the  government;  and 
this  practice  continued  throughout  the  Western  and  East¬ 
ern  empires  wherever  it  was  not  stopped  by  invasion.  Ac¬ 
cordingly,  the  urban  proletariat  was  everywhere  debased 
to  the  condition  of  a,  rabble,  without  valor  or  intellect,  unfit 
for  freedom  and  incapable  of  resisting  either  a  domestic 


io8  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


tyrant  or  a  foreign  foe.  But,  until  the  reign  of  Theodosius, 
the  empire  had  never  been  without  a  free  agricultural 
peasantry,  which,  after  the  first  century  a.d.  was  mostly 
Christian  and  was  improved  by  spiritual  leadership.  In 
all  the  heart  of  the  Eastern  empire — in  all  the  provinces 
where  civilization  had  been  handed  down  from  antiquity — 
Church  and  state  had  combined  to  deprive  the  agricultural 
population  of  spiritual  leadership  and  of  freedom.  When 
the  Christian  Church  became  a  state  Church,  orthodoxy 
fixed  and  sealed  by  law,  and  heresy  stamped  out  by  inquisi¬ 
tion,  spiritual  guidance  abdicated,  and  carnal  powers  were 
enthroned. 

As  the  nervous  organization  of  posterity  diminished, 
energy,  enterprise,  and  ingenuity  declined,  so  that  the  em¬ 
pire  no  longer  sent  forth  pioneers,  occupied  new  provinces, 
or  tapped  new  sources  of  wealth.  Spy  government  enor¬ 
mously  increased  the  numbers  and  rapacity  of  the  imperial 
and  ecclesiastical  establishments.  The  land  swarmed  with 
the  consuming  hierarchy  of  extortion,  and  it  was  said  that 
those  who  received  the  taxes  were  greater  in  number  than 
those  who  paid  them.  The  burden  of  taxation  was  enor¬ 
mously  increased,  yet  Justinian  complained  that  one-third 
of  his  revenues  never  reached  the  imperial  treasury.  The 
cultivators  of  the  soil  were  regarded  simply  as  intruments 
for  feeding  and  clothing  the  army,  the  court,  and  the 
Church,  and  the  whole  of  the  obtainable  surplus  of  their 
production  was  annually  taken  from  them,  the  producers,  to 
be  consumed  by  the  imperial  and  ecclesiastical  establish¬ 
ments.  No  economy  or  industry  could  enable  a  tax  payer 
to  accumulate  wealth;  while  any  accident,  a  fire,  an  inunda¬ 
tion,  an  earthquake,  or  a  hostile  incursion  of  barbarians 
might  plunge  a  whole  province  into  irrecoverable  ruin. 
Imperial  legislation  was  framed  to  meet  the  ever  increasing 
need  for  revenue, — the  imperial  subjects  were  even  forbid¬ 
den  to  change  their  occupation,  to  move  about,  or  to  leave 
the  city  or  country.  Those  who  had  been  freemen  gradually 
acquired  the  status  of  serfs. 


EASTERN  EMPIRE 


109 


“Laws  were  enacted  to  fix  every  class  of  society  in  its 
actual  condition  with  regard  to  the  revenue.  The  son  of  a 
member  of  the  curia  was  bound  to  take  his  father’s  place; 
the  son  of  a  landed  proprietor  could  neither  become  a 
tradesman  nor  a  soldier,  unless  he  had  a  brother  who  could 
replace  his  father  as  a  payer  of  the  land-tax.  The  son  of  an 
artisan  was  bound  to  follow  his  father’s  profession  that  the 
amount  of  the  capitation  might  not  be  diminished.  Every 
corporation  or  guild  had  the  power  of  compelling  the  chil¬ 
dren  of  its  members  to  complete  its  numbers.  Fiscal  con¬ 
servatism  became  the  spirit  of  Roman  legislation.  To 
prevent  the  land  beyond  the  limits  of  a  municipality  from 
falling  out  of  cultivation,  by  the  free  inhabitants  of  the 
rural  districts  quitting  their  lands  in  order  to  better  their 
condition  in  the  towns,  the  laws  gradually  attached  them  to 
the  soil,  and  converted  them  into  serfs.”  (Finlay,  Greece 
Under  the  Romans ,  Chap.  II.) 

During  the  rise  of  pagan  Rome,  and  of  the  Christians 
for  the  first  three  centuries,  there  had  always  been  a  free 
and  unrationed  agricultural  peasantry.  In  the  ten  cen¬ 
turies  from  Numa  to  Theodosius,  it  appears  and  reappears 
in  history’s  pages.  As  often  as  the  aristocratic  groups  of 
augmented  nervous  organization  reached  their  peak  and 
disappeared,  their  place  was  supplied  by  a  new  group  rising 
from  below.  In  the  Eastern  empire,  this  process  finally 
stopped.  The  extinction  of  a  free  proletariat  must  be 
reckoned  as  one  of  the  chief  causes  of  the  Eastern  empire’s 
decay.1 

1  “The  state  of  society  in  the  Eastern  empire  underwent  far  greater 
changes  than  the  imperial  administration.  The  race  of  wealthy  nobles, 
whose  princely  fortunes  and  independent  bearing  had  excited  the  fears 
and  the  avarice  of  the  early  Cassars,  had  been  long  extinct.  The  im¬ 
perial  court  and  household  included  all  the  higher  classes  in  the  capital. 
The  Senate  was  now  only  a  corps  of  officials,  and  the  people  had  no  posi¬ 
tion  in  the  State  but  that  of  tax-payers.  While  the  officers  of  the  civil, 
finance,  and  judicial  departments,  the  clergy  and  the  military,  were  the 
servants  of  the  emperor,  the  people,  the  Roman  people,  were  his  slaves. 
No  connecting  link  of  common  interest  or  national  sympathy  united  the 
various  classes  as  one  body,  and  connected  them  with  the  emperor.  The 
only  bond  of  union  was  one  of  universal  oppression,  as  everything  in  the 
imperial  government  had  become  subordinate  to  the  necessity  of  supply- 


no  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


62.  Besides  the  economic  slavery  imposed  upon  all  the 
imperial  and  orthodox  subjects  by  the  taxation  and  tithes 
of  state  and  Church,  there  remained  the  ancient  institution 
of  human  slavery  in  its  most  aggravated  form.  The  status 
of  “slave”  was  nothing  new;  it  had  described  and  distin¬ 
guished  the  condition  of  vast  numbers  of  human  beings  of 
every  ancient  civilization.  But,  in  the  enlarging  boundaries 
of  rising  civilizations,  war  and  conquest  had  continuously 
recruited  the  ranks  of  slaves  by  captives  newly  taken  from 
the  free.  As  late  in  Roman  history  as  the  conquests  of 
Julius  Caesar  and  the  reign  of  Augustus,  a  large  proportion 
of  the  slaves  on  Italian  soil  were  captive  men  taken  in  free¬ 
dom  and  sold  into  slavery.  Slave  uprisings  sometimes 
occurred,  and  the  menace  was  always  present ;  so  that  their 
masters  feared  to  give  the  slaves  a  distinctive  dress  lest 
they  should  learn  their  own  numbers  and  power.  In  the 
contracting  boundaries  of  the  Eastern  empire  the  slave  had 
ceased  to  be  a  captive  man ;  slavery  was  an  inherited  status ; 
the  slave  was  live-stock,  bred  upon  his  owner’s  estate.  The 
servile  uprisings  of  the  second  and  first  centuries  B.c.  no 
longer  occurred  under  the  Christian  emperors,  and  even 
the  fear  of  them  had  departed.  It  is  in  the  long  decline 
of  the  Eastern  empire  that  the  effects  of  inherited  slavery 
can  be  best  studied. 

The  first  distinct  selective  influence  adverse  to  slavery 
as  a  class  was  evidently  the  occasional  emancipation  of  in¬ 
dividuals.  Slaves  whose  abilities  or  opportunities  were 

ing  the  treasury  with  money.  The  fiscal  severity  of  the  Roman  govern¬ 
ment  had  for  centuries  been  gradually  absorbing  all  the  accumulated 
wealth  of  society,  as  the  possession  of  large  fortunes  was  almost  sure  to 
entail  their  confiscation.  Even  if  the  wealth  of  the  higher  classes  in  the 
provinces  escaped  this  fate,  it  was,  by  the  constitution  of  the  empire, 
rendered  responsible  for  the  deficiencies  which  might  occur  in  the  taxes 
of  the  districts  from  which  it  was  obtained ;  and  thus  the  rich  were  every¬ 
where  rapidly  sinking  to  the  level  of  the  general  poverty.  The  destruc- 
ton  of  the  higher  classes  of  society  had  swept  away  all  the  independent 
landed  proprietors  before  Justinian  commenced  his  series  of  reforms  in 
the  provinces.”  (Finlay,  Greece  Under  the  Romans ,  Chap.  Ill,  Sect.  I.) 


EASTERN  EMPIRE 


in 


singularly  great  often  laid  their  masters  under  obligations 
of  gratitude  for  which  the  slave’s  freedom  was  the  custom¬ 
ary  reward.  In  the  Eastern  empire  this  class  was  large 
enough  to  receive  a  distinctive  name  and  classification 
under  certain  sections  of  the  Justinian  code.  They  were 
called  “libertines.”  Whatever  their  numbers,  the  average 
of  ability  among  the  libertines  must  have  been  decidedly 
higher  than  the  average  of  the  class  from  which  they 
sprung.  They  often  rose  to  power,  and  the  free  inhabitants 
of  the  empire  who,  by  imperial  confiscation  had  been  re¬ 
duced  to  slavery,  sometimes  found  themselves  ruled  by  an 
ex-slave  who  by  imperial  favor  had  been  raised  to  freedom. 
But  it  is  apparent  that  the  perennial  subtraction  of  the 
ablest  from  the  whole  class  of  slaves  must  have  reduced  the 
average  ability  of  all  the  remainder. 

The  second  and  greater  cause  for  the  deterioration  of 
slaves  under  inherited  slavery,  is  to  be  found  in  the  terms 
of  their  mating  and  reproduction.  That  “family”  life, 
meaning  the  dependence  of  wife  and  children  upon  the  earn¬ 
ing  ability  of  husband  and  father,  which  in  free  and  monog¬ 
amous  societies  is  so  effective  in  continuing  and  reproduc¬ 
ing  the  strain  of  cold  women,  is  unknown  to  slaves.  The 
marriage  ceremony  may  or  may  not  be  allowed  to  them. 
But  marriage  is  without  economic  significance.  Slaves  are 
chattels  and  their  economic  condition  is  dependent  upon 
the  wealth  or  generosity  of  their  owner.  Having  no 
property  of  their  own,  having  nothing  to  lose  by  idleness, 
intemperance  or  extravagance,  and  nothing  to  gain  by  in¬ 
dustry,  avarice  or  frugality,  each  successive  generation  is 
deprived  of  the  selective  influences  which  spring  from  free¬ 
dom  and  property  rights.  Slaves  are  on  rations,  and  the 
rations  are  equal,  if  not  to  every  slave,  at  least  to  every 
slave  of  each  class.  On  equal  rations,  ardent  and  prolific 
women  multiply  much  faster  than  cold  or  partially  cold 
ones.  The  woman  who  under  these  conditions  can,  and 
does,  bring  many  children  into  the  world,  stamps  her  char¬ 
acter  upon  posterity.  The  slave  woman  who  was  partially 


1 12  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


cold  and  bore  fewer  children  was  quickly  exterminated  and 
her  characteristics  wholly  subtracted  from  the  slave  class. 
The  result,  therefore,  of  inherited  slavery,  was  that  after 
some  generations  there  were  no  slaves  except  the  descend¬ 
ants  of  a  continuous  line  of  ardent  and  prolific  mothers.  All 
sexual  coldness  in  the  slave  class  disappeared,  and  with  it 
disappeared  augmented  nervous  organizations,  the  love  of 
freedom,  the  courage  to  rebel,  the  spirit  of  inquiry,  acquisi¬ 
tion,  ambition  and  learning.  The  great  revolts  which  had 
taken  place  among  the  newly  enslaved,  were  no  longer  to 
be  feared.  The  continuous  normal  reproduction  of  the 
willing  female  tended  to  bring  the  slaves  down  to  the  level 
of  animals — content  to  be  fed,  mated,  worked  and  driven.1 

63.  The  history  of  the  Eastern  empire,  from  its  final 
establishment  under  Arcadius  to  its  destruction  by  the 
Crusaders,  covers  eight  centuries  of  time.  A  most  interest¬ 
ing  comparison  may  be  instituted  between  that  history  and 
the  history  of  rising  civilizations  during  a  like  period  of  eight 
centuries.  In  Rome,  this  would  embrace  the  period  from 

1  See  Gibbon’s  account  of  the  journey  of  Danielis  from  Patras  to 
Constantinople  in  the  ninth  century,  A.D. 

“A  matron  of  Peloponnesus,  who  had  cherished  the  infant  fortunes 
of  Basil  the  Macedonian,  was  excited  by  tenderness  or  vanity  to  visit  the 
greatness  of  her  adopted  son.  In  a  journey  of  five  hundred  miles  from 
Patras  to  Constantinople,  her  age  or  indolence  declined  the  fatigue  of  a 
horse  or  carriage;  the  soft  litter  or  bed  of  Danielis  was  transported  on 
the  shoulders  of  ten  robust  slaves,  and,  as  they  were  relieved  at  easy  dis- 
ances,  a  band  of  three  hundred  was  selected  for  the  performance  of  this 
service.  She  was  entertained  in  the  Byzantine  palace  with  filial  rever¬ 
ence  and  the  honours  of  a  queen;  and  whatever  might  be  the  origin  of 
her  wealth,  her  gifts  were  not  unworthy  of  the  regal  dignity.  I  have 
already  described  the  fine  and  curious  manufactures  of  Peloponnesus,  of 
linen,  silk,  and  woollen;  but  the  most  acceptable  of  her  presents  con¬ 
sisted  in  three  hundred  beautiful  youths,  of  whom  one  hundred  were 
eunuchs;  “for  she  was  not  ignorant,”  says  the  historian,  “that  the  air  of 
the  palace  is  more  congenial  to  such  insects,  than  a  shepherd’s  dairy  to 
the  flies  of  the  summer.”  (Gibbon,  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman 
Empire ,  Chap.  LIII.) 

It  is  evident  that  these  slaves  were  not  captive  men.  They  were  live 
stock,  bred  on  the  owner’s  estate. 


EASTERN  EMPIRE 


ii3 

Numa  to  Trajan.  In  France,  from  Clovis  to  Philip  Augus¬ 
tus;  or  from  Hugh  Capet  to  Louis  XIV.  In  England, 
from  William  the  Conqueror  to  Victoria. 

There  can  be  no  period  of  eight  centuries  without  national 
vicissitudes.  But,  in  spite  of  these,  the  upward  or  down¬ 
ward  trend  of  national  civilization  may  be  seen,  and  the 
reasons  for  it  ascertained  and  understood.  In  all  the  ortho¬ 
dox  lands  ruled  from  the  Bosphorus,  there  was  no  group 
which  enjoyed  a  favorable  selection  of  mothers,  there  was 
no  freedom,  no  diversity,  no  private  property  which  could 
be  withheld  from  the  state,  no  independent  class.  From 
the  lowest  to  the  highest,  the  lives,  liberty,  and  property  of 
all  the  subjects  of  the  Eastern  empire  were  equally  sub¬ 
servient  to  the  sovereign’s  will.  A  dead  level  of  obedience 
oppressed  them  all.  If  the  Church  be  alleged  as  an  excep¬ 
tion,  it  must  be  observed  that  the  churchmen  and  the  re¬ 
ligious  abided  in  sterility,  refused  to  multiply  or  even  to 
reproduce  themselves,  but  perpetually  recruited  their 
numbers  from  the  servile  laity. 

In  all  the  rising  civilizations  that  have  been  suggested  for 
comparison,  none  of  these  things  were  wholly  true.  Some 
part  of  the  population  was  always  improving  posterity  by 
a  favorable  selection  of  mothers,  some  of  the  rulers’  sub¬ 
jects  were  free,  there  was  some  diversity,  some  independ¬ 
ence,  some  enjoyment  of  rights  of  private  property,  some 
class  of  nobles  and  freemen  who  held  life,  liberty,  and 
property  secure  from  the  oppression  of  the  crown.  They 
were  often  a  minority,  but,  nevertheless,  they  were  a  fruit¬ 
ful  minority ;  and  by  their  increase  posterity  was  improved. 

Among  the  wealthiest,  the  patricians,  the  nobles,  and 
those  of  inherited  wealth,  the  emancipation  of  woman, 
perfected  centuries  before  throughout  the  Roman  empire, 
was  a  traditional  and  firmly  established  fact.  In  these 
families,  woman’s  share  of  property  was  firmly  secured  to 
her.  Economic  independence  enabled  the  cold  woman  to 
refuse  marriage.  An  equal  right  of  divorce  enabled  her  to 
escape  it.  And  Christianity  preserved  in  the  Eastern  em- 


1 14  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


pire  that  “secondary  marriage,’’  or  voluntary  union  of  a 
free  citizen  and  a  concubine  which  had  already  become 
established  and  protected  in  the  laws  of  pagan  Rome.  Eco¬ 
nomic  independence  and  liberty  of  divorce,  therefore,  pro¬ 
moted  the  sterility  of  cold  women.  Concubinage  multiplied 
the  offspring  of  ardent  ones.  The  Eastern  empire,  in  re¬ 
spect  to  its  social  usages,  became  gradually  oriental.  Cold 
women  of  a  type  that  earlier  Rome  had  forced  to  be  prolific, 
were  now  barren.  Ardent  ones  who  in  an  earlier  age  would 
have  suffered  seduction  and  ruin,  were  now  fruitful.  The 
spiritual  chastity,  which  had  once  distinguished  and  en¬ 
nobled  the  Roman  matrons,  was  a  thing  of  the  past.  Hus¬ 
bands  entrusted  their  honor  to  the  vigilance  of  eunuchs, 
rather  than  to  the  virtues  of  their  wives.  And  that  species 
of  human  property,  always  significant  of  the  domestic 
usage  which  begets  an  oriental  posterity,  greatly  multiplied 
in  Constantinople.1 

Under  Justinian  the  orientalization  of  the  Eastern  em¬ 
pire  was  complete;  and  was  never  afterward  abandoned. 
The  laws  under  which  the  people  lived,  the  sentiments 
which  they  professed,  the  language  in  which  these  sentiments 
were  couched,  all  were  oriental. 2 

1  Eunuchs  commanded  a  higher  price  than  other  slaves.  “If  the 
option  of  a  slave  was  bequeathed  to  several  legatees,  they  drew  lots,  and 
the  losers  were  entitled  to  their  share  of  his  value :  ten  pieces  of  gold  for  a 
common  servant  or  maid  under  ten  years;  if  above  that  age,  twenty;  if 
they  knew  a  trade,  thirty;  notaries  or  writers,  fifty;  mid-wives  or  physi¬ 
cians,  sixty;  eunuchs  under  ten  years,  thirty  pieces,  above,  fifty;  if 
tradesmen,  seventy  (Cod.  I,  vi.,  tit.  xliii.,  leg.  3).  These  legal  prices 
are  generally  below  those  of  the  market."  (Gibbon,  Decline  and  Fall  of 
the  Roman  Empire ,  Chap.  XLIV,  Footnote.) 

2  “  The  pleasure  of  the  emperor  has  the  vigour  and  effect  of  law,  since 
the  Roman  people,  by  the  royal  law,  have  transferred  to  their  prince  the 
full  extent  of  their  own  power  and  sovereignty.”  (Institut.  I.  i.,  tit.  II., 
No.  6;  Pandect.  I,  i.,  tit.  iv.,  leg.  1,  Cod.  Justinian  I,  i.,  tit.  xvii,  leg.  1, 
No.  7.) 

“What  interest  or  passion,”  exclaims  Theophilus  in  the  court  of 
Justinian,  “can  reach  the  calm  and  sublime  elevation  of  the  monarch? 
He  is  already  master  of  the  lives  and  fortunes  of  his  subjects,  and  those 


EASTERN  EMPIRE 


ii5 

The  space  of  eight  centuries  saw  many  changing  dynas¬ 
ties,  good,  bad,  able,  dissolute,  weak,  and  strong  occupants 
of  the  imperial  throne ;  but  in  all  that  time  there  was  not  one 
attempt  to  set  up  a  free  government  or  a  republic.  The 
citizens  might  suffer  under  tyranny,  but  they  could  not  live 
without  it. 

who  have  incurred  his  displeasure  are  already  numbered  with  the  dead.” 
(Gibbon,  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire ,  Chap.  XLIV.) 

“But  the  justice  of  Theophilus  was  fashioned  on  the  model  of  the 
oriental  despots,  who,,  in  personal  and  irregular  acts  of  authority,  con¬ 
sult  the  reason  or  passion  of  the  moment,  without  measuring  the  sen¬ 
tence  by  the  law,  or  the  penalty  by  the  offence.  A  poor  woman  threw 
herself  at  the  emperor’s  feet  to  complain  of  a  powerful  neighbour,  the 
brother  of  the  empress,  who  had  raised  his  palace- wall  to  such  an  incon¬ 
venient  height,  that  her  humble  dwelling  was  excluded  from  light  and 
air.  On  the  proof  of  the  fact,  instead  of  granting  like  an  ordinary 
judge,  sufficient  or  ample  damages  to  the  plaintiff,  the  sovereign  ad¬ 
judged  to  her  use  and  benefit  the  palace  and  the  ground.  Nor  was 
Theophilus  content  with  this  extravagant  satisfaction ;  his  zeal  converted 
a  civil  trespass  into  a  criminal  act;  and  the  unfortunate  patrician  was 
stripped  and  scourged  in  the  public  place  of  Constantinople.”  (. Ibid ., 
Chap.  XLVIII.) 

“  The  mode  of  adoration ,  of  falling  prostrate  on  the  ground  and  kissing 
the  feet  of  the  emperor,  was  borrowed  by  Diocletian  from  Persian  servi¬ 
tude;  but  it  was  continued  and  aggravated  till  the  last  age  of  the  Greek 
monarchy.” 

“A  lethargy  of  servitude  had  benumbed  the  minds  of  the  Greeks;  in 
the  wildest  tumults  of  rebellion  they  never  aspired  to  the  idea  of  a  free 
constitution;  and  the  private  character  of  the  prince  was  the  only 
source  and  measure  of  their  public  happiness.” 

“But  these  advantages  only  tend  to  aggravate  the  reproach  and 
shame  of  a  degenerate  people.  They  held  in  their  lifeless  hands  the 
riches  of  their  fathers,  without  inheriting  the  spirit  which  had  created 
and  improved  that  sacred  patrimony:  they  read,  they  praised,  they 
compiled,  but  their  languid  souls  seemed  alike  incapable  of  thought  and 
action.  In  the  revolution  of  ten  centuries,  not  a  single  discovery  was 
made  to  exalt  the  dignity  or  promote  the  happiness  of  mankind.  Not  a 
single  idea  has  been  added  to  the  speculative  systems  of  antiquity, 
and  a  succession  of  patient  disciples  became  in  their  turn  the  dogmatic 
teachers  of  the  next  servile  generation.  Not  a  single  composition  of 
history,  philosophy,  or  literature,  has  been  saved  from  oblivion  by  the 
intrinsic  beauties  of  style  or  sentiment,  of  original  fancy,  or  even  of 
successful  imitation.”  (Ibid.,  Chap.  LIII.) 


CHAPTER  VII 


ISLAM 

64.  Before  continuing  the  examination  of  social  changes 
in  that  region  of  the  Roman  Empire  which  continued  to  be 
Christian,  it  seems  best  to  observe  the  changes  which  took 
place  in  its  southern  provinces  under  the  influence  of  the 
Moslem  religion.  Until  the  7th  century  A.D.,  Christianity 
continued  to  exert  in  these  regions  the  influences  which,  by 
exalting  religious  sterility  and  monasticism,  effectually  sub¬ 
tracted  piety,  virtue,  continence  and  abnegation  from 
posterity.  The  rising  power  and  rapid  spread  of  Islam  in 
the  7th  and  8th  centuries  measures  not  so  much  the  purity 
and  worth  of  that  religion,  as  it  does  the  debasement  of  the 
Christian  inhabitants.  For  several  centuries,  Christianity 
yielded  to  Islam  an  enormous  advantage.  The  pious  and 
devout  followers  of  the  new  religion  were  invited  to  become 
fruitful  and  to  renew  their  virtues  in  each  succeeding  genera¬ 
tion.  In  a  century,  the  resulting  change  transformed  the 
lands  where  it  occurred.  Spirituality,  which  had  fallen 
into  a  death-like  torpor,  was  quickened  and  renewed. 

“  In  a  few  centuries  the  fanatics  of  Mohammed  had  alto¬ 
gether  changed  their  appearance.  Great  philosophers, 
physicians,  mathematicians,  astronomers,  alchemists,  gram¬ 
marians,  had  arisen  among  them.  Letters  and  science  in  all 
their  various  departments,  were  cultivated.”  (Draper, 
Intellectual  Development  of  Europe,  Vol.  I.) 

The  converts  of  Islam  were  taught  to  worship  a  pure  ab¬ 
straction.  Always  and  everywhere  this  teaching  stimu¬ 
lates  the  intellect  and  effectually  frees  posterity.  Each 

116 


ISLAM 


ii  7 

succeeding  generation  can  form  its  own  conception  of  God. 
The  Moslem  converts  were  taught  the  wickedness  of  human 
sacrifice  for  religion,  and  the  holiness  and  virtue  of  mar¬ 
riage.  Thus,  while  Christians  were  enchaining  posterity  by 
image  worship  and  were  debasing  it  by  the  perennial  steri¬ 
lization  of  the  pious  and  holy,  the  Moslems  secured  to 
each  succeeding  generation  its  own  conception  of  God  and 
improved  posterity  by  preaching  marriage  and  fruitfulness 
to  the  conscientious  and  the  devout.  Moslem  civilization, 
in  short,  enjoyed,  for  about  three  hundred  years,  the  same 
improving  factors  afterward  observed  in  Christian  Europe 
for  a  similar  space  of  time,  from  the  16th  to  the  19th  century. 

65.  Between  Moslems  and  Christians  in  the  8th  and  9th 
centuries,  the  contrast  was  very  great. 

“  From  the  barbarism  of  the  native  people  of  Europe,  who 
could  scarcely  be  said  to  have  emerged  from  the  savage 
state,  unclean  in  person,  benighted  in  mind,  inhabiting 
huts  in  which  it  was  a  mark  of  wealth  if  there  were  bulrushes 
on  the  floor  and  straw  mats  against  the  wall ;  miserably  fed 
on  beans,  vetches,  roots,  and  even  the  bark  of  trees;  clad 
in  garments  of  untanned  skin,  or  at  the  best  of  leather — 
perennial  in  durability,  but  not  conducive  to  personal 
purity — a  state  in  which  the  pomp  of  royalty  was  suffi¬ 
ciently  and  satisfactorily  manifested  in  the  equipage  of  the 
sovereign,  an  ox-cart,  drawn  by  not  less  than  two  yokes  of 
cattle,  quickened  in  their  movements  by  the  goads  of 
pedestrian  serfs,  whose  legs  were  wrapped  in  wisps  of 
straw;  from  a  people,  devout  believers  in  all  the  wild  fictions 
of  shrine-miracles  and  preposterous  relics :  from  the  degrada¬ 
tion  of  a  base  theology,  and  from  the  disputes  of  ambitious 
ecclesiastics  for  power,  it  is  pleasant  to  turn  to  the  south¬ 
west  corner  of  the  continent,  where,  under  auspices  of  a 
very  different  kind,  the  irradiations  of  light  were  to  break 
forth.  The  crescent  in  the  West  was  soon  to  pass  eastward 
to  its  full.”  (Draper,  Ibid.,  Vol.  II,  Chap.  II.) 

“  Scarcely  had  the  Arabs  become  firmly  settled  in  Spain 
when  they  commenced  a  brilliant  career.  Adopting  what 
had  now  become  the  established  policy  of  the  Commanders 
of  the  Faithful  in  Asia,  the  Emirs  of  Cordova  distinguished 
themselves  as  patrons  of  learning,  and  set  an  example  of 
refinement  strongly  contrasting  with  the  condition  of  the 


1 1 8  THE  PHILO  SOPH  Y  OF  Cl  VI LIZ  A  TION 


native  European  princes.  Cordova,  under  their  administra¬ 
tion,  at  its  highest  point  of  prosperity,  boasted  of  more  than 
two  hundred  thousand  houses,  and  more  than  a  million  of 
inhabitants.  After  sunset,  a  man  might  walk  through  it  in 
a  straight  line  for  ten  miles  by  the  light  of  the  public  lamps. 
Seven  hundred  years  after  this  time  there  was  not  so  much 
as  one  public  lamp  in  London.  Its  streets  were  solidly 
paved.  In  Paris,  centuries  subsequently,  whoever  stepped 
over  his  threshold  on  a  rainy  day  stepped  up  to  his  ankles 
in  mud.  Other  cities,  as  Granada,  Seville,  Toledo,  con¬ 
sidered  themselves  rivals  of  Cordova.  The  palaces  of  the 
khalifs  were  magnificently  decorated.  Those  sovereigns 
might  well  look  down  with  supercilious  contempt  on  the 
dwellings  of  the  rulers  of  Germany,  France,  and  England, 
which  were  scarcely  better  than  stables — chimneyless, 
windowless,  and  with  a  hole  in  the  roof  for  the  smoke  to 
escape,  like  the  wigwams  of  certain  Indians. 

“To  these  Saracens  we  are  indebted  for  many  of  our  per¬ 
sonal  comforts.  Religiously  cleanly,  it  was  not  possible 
for  them  to  clothe  themselves  according  to  the  fashion  of 
the  natives  of  Europe,  in  a  garment  unchanged  till  it 
dropped  to  pieces  of  itself,  a  loathsome  mass  of  vermin, 
stench,  and  rags.  No  Arab  who  had  been  a  minister  of 
state,  or  the  associate  or  antagonist  of  a  sovereign,  would 
have  offered  such  a  spectacle  as  the  corpse  of  Thomas  & 
Becket  when  his  haircloth  shirt  was  removed.  They  taught 
us  the  use  of  the  often-changed  and  often-washed  under¬ 
garment  of  linen  or  cotton,  which  still  passes  among  ladies 
under  its  old  Arabic  name. 

“The  khalifs  of  the  West  carried  out  the  precepts  of  Ali, 
the  fourth  successor  of  Mohammed,  in  the  patronage  of 
literature.  They  established  libraries  in  all  their  chief 
towns ;  it  is  said  that  not  fewer  than  seventy  were  in  exist¬ 
ence.  To  every  mosque  was  attached  a  public  school,  in 
which  the  children  of  the  poor  were  taught  to  read  and  write 
and  instructed  in  the  precepts  of  the  Koran.  For  those  in 
easier  circumstances  there  were  academies  usually  arranged 
in  twenty-five  or  thirty  apartments,  each  calculated  for 
accommodating  four  students ;  the  academy  being  presided 
over  by  a  rector.  In  Cordova,  Granada,  and  other  great 
cities,  there  were  universities  frequently  under  the  superin¬ 
tendence  of  Jews;  the  Mohammedan  maxim  being  that  the 
real  learning  of  a  man  is  of  more  public  importance  than 
any  particular  religious  opinions  he  may  entertain.  In  this 
they  followed  the  example  of  the  Asiatic  khalif,  Haroun 


ISLAM 


119 

Alraschid,  who  actually  conferred  the  superintendence  of 
his  schools  on  John  Masu£,  a  Nestorian  Christian.  The 
Mohammedan  liberality  was  in  striking  contrast  with  the 
intolerance  of  Europe.  Indeed,  it  may  be  doubted  whether 
at  this  time  any  European  nation  is  sufficiently  advanced 
to  follow  such  an  example.  In  the  universities  some  of  the 
professors  of  polite  literature  gave  lectures  on  Arabic  classi¬ 
cal  works;  others  taught  rhetoric  or  composition,  or  mathe¬ 
matics,  or  astronomy.  From  these  institutions  many  of 
the  practices  observed  in  our  colleges  were  derived.  They 
held  Commencements,  at  which  poems  were  read  and  ora¬ 
tions  delivered  in  presence  of  the  public.  They  had  also,  in 
addition  to  these  schools  of  general  learning,  professional 
ones,  particularly  for  medicine. 

“Pharmacopoeias  were  published  by  the  schools,  improve¬ 
ments  on  the  old  ones  of  the  Nestorians:  to  them  may  be 
traced  the  introduction  of  many  Arabic  words,  such  as 
syrup,  julep,  elixir,  still  used  among  apothecaries.  A 
competent  scholar  might  furnish  not  only  an  interesting, 
but  valuable  book,  founded  on  the  remaining  relics  of  the 
Arab  vocabulary;  for,  in  whatever  direction  we  may  look, 
we  meet,  in  the  various  pursuits  of  peace  and  war,  of  letters 
and  of  science,  Saracenic  vestiges.  Our  dictionaries  tell  us 
that  such  is  the  origin  of  admiral,  alchemy,  alcohol,  algebra, 
chemise,  cotton,  and  hundreds  of  other  words.  The 
Saracens  commenced  the  application  of  chemistry,  both  to 
the  theory  and  practice  of  medicine,  in  the  explanation  of 
the  functions  of  the  human  body  and  in  the  cure  of  its 
diseases.  Nor  was  their  surgery  behind  their  medicine. 
Albucasis,  of  Cordova,  shrinks  not  from  the  performance  of 
the  most  formidable  operations  in  his  own  and  in  the  ob¬ 
stetrical  art;  the  actual  cautery  and  the  knife  are  used 
without  hesitation.  He  has  left  us  ample  descriptions  of 
the  surgical  instruments  then  employed;  and  from  him  we 
learn  that,  in  operations  on  females  in  which  considerations 
of  delicacy  intervened,  the  services  of  properly  instructed 
women  were  secured.  How  different  was  all  this  from  the 
state  of  things  in  Europe:  the  Christian  peasant,  fever- 
stricken  or  overtaken  by  accident,  hied  to  the  nearest  saint- 
shrine  and  expected  a  miracle;  the  Spanish  Moor  relied  on 
the  prescription  or  lancet,  of  his  physician,  or  the  bandage 
and  knife  of  his  surgeon. 

“From  the  Hindus  the  Arabs  learned  arithmetic,  especially 
that  valuable  invention  termed  by  us  the  Arabic  numerals, 
but  honourably  ascribed  by  them  to  its  proper  source,  under 


120  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


the  designation  of  “Indian  numerals.”  They  also  entitled 
their  treatises  on  the  subject  “Systems  of  Indian  Arithme¬ 
tic.”  This  admirable  notation  by  nine  digits  and  cipher 
occasioned  a  complete  revolution  in  arithmetical  computa¬ 
tions.  As  in  the  case  of  so  many  other  things,  the  Arab 
impress  is  upon  it;  our  word  cipher,  and  its  derivatives, 
ciphering,  etc.,  recall  the  Arabic  word  tsaphara  or  ciphra, 
the  name  for  the  o,  and  meaning  that  which  is  blank  or 
void.  Mohammed  Ben  Musa,  said  to  be  the  earliest  of 
the  Saracen  authors  on  algebra,  and  who  made  the  great 
improvement  of  substituting  sines  for  chords  in  trigo¬ 
nometry,  wrote  also  on  this  Indian  system.  He  lived  at 
the  end  of  the  ninth  century ;  before  the  end  of  the  tenth  it 
was  in  common  use  among  the  African  and  Spanish  mathe¬ 
maticians.  Ebn  Junis,  a.d.  1008,  used  it  in  his  astronomical 
works.  From  Spain  it  passed  into  Italy,  its  singular  ad¬ 
vantage  in  commercial  computation  causing  it  to  be  eagerly 
adopted  in  the  great  trading  cities.  We  still  use  the  word 
algorithm  in  reference  to  calculations.  The  study  of  algebra 
was  intently  cultivated  among  the  Arabs,  who  gave  it  the 
name  it  bears.  Ben  Musa,  just  referred  to,  was  the  in¬ 
ventor  of  the  common  method  of  solving  quadratic  equa¬ 
tions.  In  the  application  of  mathematics  to  astronomy 
and  physics  they  had  been  long  distinguished.  Almaimon 
had  determined  with  considerable  accuracy  the  obliquity  of 
the  ecliptic.  His  result,  with  those  of  some  other  Saracen 
astronomers,  is  as  follows : 


A.D.  830 

Almaimon 

23 

35' 

52' 

“  879 

Albategnius,  at  Aracte 

23 

35 

00 

“  987 

Aboul  Wefa,  at  Bagdad 

23 

35 

00 

“  995 

Aboul  Rihau,  with  a  quadrant 
of  25  feet  radius 

23 

35 

00 

“  1080 

Arzachael 

23 

34 

00 

Almaimon  had  also  ascertained  the  size  of  the  earth  from 
the  measurement  of  a  degree  on  the  shore  of  the  Red  Sea — 
an  operation  implying  true  ideas  of  its  form,  and  in  singular 
contrast  with  the  doctrine  of  Constantinople  and  Rome.  * 
While  the  latter  was  asserting,  in  all  its  absurdity,  the  flat¬ 
ness  of  the  earth,  the  Spanish  Moors  were  teaching  geog¬ 
raphy  in  their  common  schools  from  globes.  In  Africa, 
there  was  still  preserved,  with  almost  religious  reverence, 
in  the  library  at  Cairo,  one  of  brass,  reputed  to  have 
belonged  to  the  great  astronomer,  Ptolemy. 


ISLAM 


121 

“  A1  Idrisi  made  one  of  silver  for  Roger  II.,  of  Sicily;  and 
Gerbert  used  one  which  he  had  brought  from  Cordova  in 
the  school  he  established  at  Rheims.  It  cost  a  struggle  of 
several  centuries,  illustrated  by  some  martyrdoms,  before 
the  dictum  of  Lactantius  and  Augustine  could  be  over¬ 
thrown.  Among  problems  of  interest  that  were  solved 
may  be  mentioned  the  determination  of  the  length  of  the 
year  by  Albategnius  and  Thebit  Ben  Corrah;  and  increased 
accuracy  was  given  to  the  correction  of  astronomical  ob¬ 
servations  by  Alhazen’s  great  discovery  of  atmospheric 
refraction.  Among  the  astronomers,  some  composed  tables ; 
some  wrote  on  the  measure  of  time ;  some  on  the  improve¬ 
ment  of  clocks,  for  which  purpose  they  were  the  first  to  apply 
the  pendulum ;  some  on  instruments,  as  the  astrolabe.  The 
introduction  of  astronomy  into  Christian  Europe  has  been 
attributed  to  the  translation  of  the  works  of  Mohammed 
Fargani.  In  Europe,  also,  the  Arabs  were  the  first  to  build 
observatories;  the  Giralda,  or  tower  of  Seville,  was  erected 
under  the  superintendence  of  Geber,  the  mathematician, 
a.d.  1196,  for  that  purpose.  Its  fate  was  not  a  little  charac¬ 
teristic.  After  the  expulsion  of  the  Moors  it  was  turned  into 
a  belfry,  the  Spaniards  not  knowing  what  else  to  do  with  it. 

“  I  have  to  deplore  the  systematic  manner  in  which  the 
literature  of  Europe  has  contrived  to  put  out  of  sight  our 
scientific  obligations  to  the  Mohammedans.  Surely  they 
cannot  be  much  longer  hidden.  Injustice  founded  on  re¬ 
ligious  rancour  and  national  conceit  cannot  be  perpetuated 
forever.  What  should  the  modern  astronomer  say  when, 
remembering  the  contemporary  barbarians  of  Europe,  he 
finds  the  Arab  Abul  Hassan  speaking  of  tubes,  to  the  ex¬ 
tremities  of  which  ocular  and  object  diopters,  perhaps 
sights,  were  attached,  as  used  at  Meragha?  What  when 
he  reads  of  the  attempts  of  Abderrahman  Sufi  at  improving 
the  photometry  of  the  stars?  Are  the  astronomical  tables 
of  Ebn  Junis  (a.d.  1008),  called  the  Hakemite  tables,  or 
the  Ilkenio  tables  of  Nasser  Eddin  Tasi,  constructed  at  the 
great  observatory  just  mentioned,  Meragha,  near  Tauris, 
a.d.  1259,  or  the  measurement  of  time  by  pendulum  oscilla¬ 
tions,  and  the  methods  of  correcting  astronomical  tables  by 
systematic  observations — are  such  things  worthless  indica¬ 
tions  of  the  mental  state  ?  The  Arab  has  left  his  intellectual 
impress  on  Europe,  as,  before  long,  Christendom  will  have 
to  confess;  he  has  indelibly  written  it  in  the  heavens  as  any 
one  may  see  who  reads  the  names  of  the  stars  on  a  common 
celestial  globe. 


122  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


“  Our  obligations  to  the  Spanish  Moors  in  the  arts  of  life 
are  even  more  marked  than  in  the  higher  branches  of 
science,  perhaps  only  because  our  ancestors  were  better 
prepared  to  take  advantage  of  things  connected  with  daily 
affairs.  They  set  an  example  of  skilful  agriculture,  the 
practice  of  which  was  regulated  by  a  code  of  laws.  Not 
only  did  they  attend  to  the  cultivation  of  plants,  introduc¬ 
ing  very  many  new  ones,  they  likewise  paid  great  attention 
to  the  breeding  of  cattle,  especially  the  sheep  and  horse. 
To  them  we  owe  the  introduction  of  the  great  products,  rice, 
sugar,  cotton,  and  also  as  we  have  previously  observed, 
nearly  all  the  fine  garden  and  orchard  fruits,  together  with 
many  less  important  plants,  as  spinach  and  saffron.  To 
them  Spain  owes  the  culture  of  silk ;  they  gave  to  Xeres  and 
Malaga  their  celebrity  for  wine.  They  introduced  the 
Egyptian  system  of  irrigation  by  flood-gates,  wheels,  and 
pumps.  They  also  promoted  many  important  branches  of 
industry;  improved  the  manufacture  of  textile  fabrics, 
earthenware,  iron,  steel;  the  Toledo  sword-blades  were 
everywhere  prized  for  their  temper.  The  Arabs,  on  their 
expulsion  from  Spain,  carried  the  manufacture  of  a  kind  of 
leather,  in  which  they  were  acknowledged  to  excel,  to 
Morocco,  from  which  country  the  leather  itself  has  now 
taken  its  name.  They  also  introduced  inventions  of  a  more 
ominous  kind — gunpowder  and  artillery.  The  cannon  they 
used  appear  to  have  been  made  of  wrought  iron.  But 
perhaps  they  more  than  compensated  for  these  evil  con¬ 
trivances  by  the  introduction  of  the  mariner’s  compass. 

“  The  mention  of  the  mariner’s  compass  might  lead  us  cor¬ 
rectly  to  infer  that  the  Spanish  Arabs  were  interested  in 
commercial  pursuits,  a  conclusion  to  which  we  should  also 
come  when  we  consider  the  revenues  of  some  of  their 
khalifs.  That  of  Abderrahman  III.  is  stated  at  five  and  a 
half  million  sterling — a  vast  sum  if  considered  by  its  modern 
equivalent,  and  far  more  than  could  possibly  be  raised  by 
taxes  on  the  produce  of  the  soil.  It  probably  exceeded  the 
entire  revenue  of  all  the  sovereigns  of  Christendom  taken 
together.  From  Barcelona  and  other  ports  an  immense 
trade  with  the  Levant  was  maintained,  but  it  was  mainly 
in  the  hands  of  the  Jews,  who,  from  the  first  invasion  of 
Spain  by  Musa,  had  ever  been  the  firm  allies  and  collabora¬ 
tors  of  the  Arabs.  Together  they  had  participated  in  the 
dangers  of  the  invasion ;  together  they  had  shared  its  bound¬ 
less  success;  together  they  had  held  in  irreverent  derision, 
nay,  even  in  contempt,  the  woman-worshippers  and  poly- 


ISLAM 


123 


theistic  savages  beyond  the  Pyrenees — as  they  mirthfully 
called  those  whose  long-delayed  vengeance  they  were  in 
the  end  to  feel ;  together  they  were  expelled.  Against  such 
Jews  as  lingered  behind,  the  hideous  persecutions  of  the 
Inquisition  were  directed.  But  in  the  days  of  their  pros¬ 
perity  they  maintained  a  merchant  marine  of  more  than  a 
thousand  ships.  They  had  factories  and  consuls  on  the 
Tanais.  With  Constantinople  alone  they  maintained  a 
great  trade;  it  ramified  from  the  Black  Sea  and  East  Medi¬ 
terranean  into  the  interior  of  Asia;  it  reached  the  ports  of 
India  and  China,  and  extended  along  the  African  coast  as 
far  as  Madagascar.  Even  in  these  commercial  affairs  the 
singular  genius  of  the  Jew  and  Arab  shines  forth.  In  the 
midst  of  the  tenth  century,  when  Europe  was  about  in  the 
same  condition  that  Caffraria  is  now,  enlightened  Moors, 
like  Abul  Cassem,  were  writing  treatises  on  the  principles 
of  trade  and  commerce.  As  on  so  many  other  occasions, 
on  these  affairs  they  have  left  their  traces.  The  smallest 
weight  they  used  in  trade  was  the  grain  of  barley,  four  of 
which  were  equal  to  one  sweet  pea,  called  in  Arabic  carat. 
We  still  use  the  grain  as  our  unit  of  weight,  and  still  speak  of 
gold  as  being  so  many  carats  fine.”  (Draper,  Intellectual 
Development  of  Europe ,  Vol.  II,  passim.) 

To  place  before  the  reader  all  the  data  as  to  the  rise  of 
Moslem  civilization,  it  is  necessary  to  quote  in  contrast  to 
Draper’s  account  of  their  brilliant  attainments  in  Cordova, 
an  earlier  and  contemporaneous  description  of  the  Saracens 
in  the  fourth  century,  as  known  to  Ammianus  Marcellinus: 

“The  Saracens,  whose  friendship  and  hostility  were  to  us 
alike  undesirable,  rushing  hither  and  thither,  plundered  in 
a  moment  whatever  they  could  lay  their  hands  on ;  just  like 
a  band  of  rapacious  kites,  who,  when  they  catch  a  glimpse 
of  their  prey,  swoop  down  upon  it  like  lightning,  and  are  off 
in  a  moment  if  they  miss  their  mark.  Among  these  tribes, 
which  extend  from  Assyria  to  the  cataracts  of  the  Nile  and 
the  confines  of  the  Blemmyae,  all  are  alike  warriors,  and 
half-naked,  their  only  covering  being  a  colored  cloak  reach¬ 
ing  to  the  loins.  By  the  help  of  their  swift  horses,  and 
camels  of  active  frame,  in  peace  and  war  alike,  they  scour 
the  whole  country,  to  its  most  opposite  limits.  No  man 
among  them  ever  puts  his  hand  to  the  plough,  plants  a  tree, 
or  seeks  a  livelihood  by  cultivating  the  soil.  They  wander 


124  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


everlastingly  over  regions  lying  far  and  wide  apart,  without  a 
home,  without  fixed  settlements  or  laws.  The  same  clime 
(i ccelum )  never  contents  them  long,  nor  are  they  ever  satis¬ 
fied  with  the  occupation  of  a  single  district.  Their  life  is 
one  perpetual  motion.  Their  wives  they  take  on  hire,  and 
keep  with  them  for  a  time  fixed  by  previous  agreement ;  and 
as  this  is  a  sort  of  wedlock,  the  bride  brings  to  her  future 
master  a  spear  and  a  tent,  with  the  privilege  of  leaving  him 
after  some  specified  day,  should  such  be  her  pleasure.  The 
licentious  passion  of  both  sexes  is  incredible.  So  wide  are 
their  wanderings,  and  so  uninterrupted  throughout  their 
whole  lives,  that  a  woman  weds  in  one  spot,  gives  birth  to 
her  child  in  another,  and  brings  up  her  family  far  away 
from  either,  without  even  being  permitted  to  enjoy  an  op¬ 
portunity  of  rest.  All,  without  exception,  live  upon  the 
flesh  of  wild  animals ;  they  have  milk  in  abundance  for  their 
support,  vegetables  of  all  sorts,  and  such  birds  as  they  are 
enabled  to  capture  by  fowling.  The  majority  of  them  we 
have  seen  to  be  entirely  ignorant  of  the  use  of  corn  and  wine. 
Thus  much  of  this  pernicious  race  of  people.”  (Ammianus 
Marcellinus,  lib.  xiv.,  §  iv.,  I.) 

66.  The  forces  of  Islam  entered  Spain  in  71 1  A.D., 
fought  and  were  defeated  at  the  Battle  of  Tours  in  732; 
retired  from  France  to  Spain,  and  there  created  in  the  cali¬ 
phate  of  Cordova  the  brilliant  civilization  described  by 
Draper — where  they  taught  geography  in  their  common 
schools  from  globes,  and  as  early  as  830  had  computed  with 
marvelous  accuracy  the  obliquity  of  the  ecliptic.  Thus 
their  rise  was  distinguished  above  all  other  civilizations  by 
two  characteristics ;  its  great  rapidity,  and  its  unparalleled 
brilliance.  Learning  in  Christian  Europe  toiled  painfully 
through  many  centuries  to  reach  the  goal  achieved  by  the 
Spanish  Moslems  in  a  single  century. 

The  evidence  now  to  be  examined  accounts  very  satis¬ 
factorily  both  for  the  brilliance  of  Moslem  civilization,  and 
for  the  speed  with  which  its  height  was  attained. 

For  the  chronology  of  the  Moslem  advance  upon  Egypt 
and  through  North  Africa  to  the  invasion  of  Spain,  I  am 
indebted  to  Gen.  Young’s  East  and  West  Through  Fifteen 


ISLAM 


125 


Centuries.  He  has  visited  and  describes  the  region  of 
North  Africa;  and  he  sets  forth  with  admirable  clearness 
the  dates  of  the  successive  events. 


A.D.  64I 


A.D.  672 


A.D.  698 


A.D.  699-704 


A.D.  704-709 


A.D.  711-713 


A.D.  73I 
A.D.  732 


Alexandria  and  all  Egypt  taken  and  per¬ 
manently  occupied.  The  Moslem  capital 
of  Cairo  founded. 

Cross  the  Libyan  desert  and  obtain  a  per¬ 
manent  foot-hold  in  the  province  of  North 
Africa,  west  of  that  desert,  founding  the 
city  of  Kairowan. 

Carthage  is  taken  and  never  thereafter 
recaptured  by  the  Romans. 

Repulsed  by  the  Moors,  the  Moslems  retire 
to  Egypt. 

Final  invasion  of  North  Africa.  In  these 
five  years  they  advance  from  Carthage  to 
Tingis  (now  Tangiers),  1000  miles  as  the 
crow  flies,  1430  miles  by  the  Roman  road. 
From  this  time  North  Africa  is  wholly  and 
permanently  lost  to  the  Romans. 

Spain  is  subdued.  The  Moslem  army  of 
71 1  was  of  20,000  men;  reinforced  in  712 
by  30,000  more. 

Advance  into  France  with  an  army  of  not 
less  than  500,000  men. 

Defeated  at  the  Battle  of  Tours. 


67.  The  swift  rise  of  Moslem  civilization  followed  the 
return  to  Spain  of  the  surviving  remnant  of  that  vast  army 
which  was  defeated  at  Tours.  From  the  foregoing  chron¬ 
ology  their  ancestry  will  be  first  deduced ;  after  which  their 
posterity  will  be  considered. 

The  age  of  enlistment  in  the  Roman  army  began  at 
seventeen  years. 

In  the  United  States  during  the  four  years  of  the  Civil 


126  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


War  (1861-1865),  2,159,798  men,  twenty-one  years  of  age 
and  under,  enlisted  in  the  union  army.  The  number 
twenty-two  years  of  age  and  over  was  628,516.  The  num¬ 
ber  eighteen  years  and  under  was  1,151,438.  Of  these, 
those  sixteen  years  and  under  numbered  844, 801. 1 

These  figures  indicate  the  age  of  fighting  men  in  Abdul 
Rahman’s  army  at  the  Battle  of  Tours.  It  is  inferable  that 
they  were  at  least  as  young  or  younger.  In  North  Africa, 
men  mature  and  marry  early. 2  Those  who  joined  the  great 
Moslem  enterprise  of  invasion,  were  undoubtedly  youths 
who  had  not  yet  established  themselves  in  homes  with 
wives  and  children. 

It  may  be  concluded  that  most  of  this  force  when  it  left 
Spain  in  731,  were  about  fifteen  years  of  age;  that  many 
were  younger;  and  that  few,  if  any,  were  over  eighteen. 
This  would  make  the  age  of  his  warriors  at  the  Battle  of 
Tours  in  732,  from  sixteen  to  nineteen — which  would  cor¬ 
respond  with  the  ages  of  the  greatest  number  of  fighting 
men  on  the  Union  side  in  the  American  Civil  War.  These 
warriors  were  born  therefore  between  the  years  713  and  716 
A.D. 

At  this  period,  the  Moslems  had  enjoyed  the  settled  and 
permanent  occupation  of  Alexandria  and  Egypt,  a  popu¬ 
lous  Christian  land,  for  seventy-five  years.  Between  704 
and  709,  that  is  from  four  to  twelve  years  before  Abdul 
Rahman’s  soldiers  were  born,  they  had  possessed  and  oc¬ 
cupied  the  populous  Christian  province  of  North  Africa, 
one  thousand  miles  long  by  two  hundred  miles  broad, 
crowded  for  about  four-fifths  of  its  length  with  numerous 
strong  cities.  The  Moslems  who  first  left  Arabia  under 
the  fighting  banner  of  Islam,  were  an  active  mounted 

1  From  a  statement  furnished  to  the  press  by  the  United  States  War 
Department,  August  7th,  1918. 

2  Mohammed's  first  vizier  was  Alii,  a  youth  in  the  fourteenth  year  of 
his  age.  “  O  prophet,  I  am  the  man;  whosoever  rises  against  thee  I  will 
dash  out  his  teeth,  tear  out  his  eyes,  break  his  legs,  rip  up  his  belly.  O 
prophet,  I  will  be  thy  vizier  over  them."  (Gibbon,  Decline  and  Fall  of 
the  Roman  Empire,  Chap.  L.) 


ISLAM 


127 


fighting  force,  capable  of  rapid  movement,  certainly  unen¬ 
cumbered  with  multitudinous  wives  and  children ;  they  were 
probably  unmarried  youths.  In  Christian  Egypt,  they 
settled  down,  and  promptly  made  wives  of  the  young 
Christian  virgins. 

In  the  course  of  nature  these  conquerors  of  Egypt  died. 
Their  sons,  of  an  ancestry  one-half  Arab,  and  one-half 
Christian,  but  Moslem  in  religion,  grew  to  fighting  age,  and 
carried  on  the  raids  against  the  Christian  population  in 
North  Africa.  They  crossed  the  Libyan  desert,  and  founded 
the  city  of  Kairowan,  thirty-one  years  after  the  occupation 
of  Egypt.  By  these  successes  more  Christian  maidens  were 
captured,  and  more  Christian  blood  was  introduced  into 
the  Moslem  group.  In  698,  twenty-six  years  after  their 
first  foot-hold  in  the  province  of  North  Africa,  fifty-seven 
years  after  their  permanent  settlement  in  Alexandria,  the 
Moslems  took  Carthage,  a  populous  city,  and  next  to  Alex¬ 
andria  the  greatest  of  Mediterranean  sea  ports.  Again  the 
seizure  of  Christian  maidens  added  Christian  blood  to  the 
Arab  strain.  In  704-709,  i.e.,  from  six  to  eleven  years  after 
the  capture  of  Carthage,  they  swept  across  the  great 
Christian  province  of  North  Africa.  From  this  vast  Chris¬ 
tian  population,  additional  Christian  blood  was  added. 
In  71 1,  they  entered  Spain,  and  in  two  years  that  Christian 
province  was  subdued.  During  this  enterprise,  the  seizure 
of  Christian  maidens  for  Moslem  wives  added  to  the  strain 
of  their  posterity,  not  only  Christian,  but  white  European 
blood — the  Visigothic  kingdom  of  Spain  had  been  estab¬ 
lished  in  419,  and  the  Spanish  virgins  whom  the  Moslems 
took  to  wife,  were  descendants  of  the  Visigoths.  It  is,  then, 
certain  that  a  Moslem  youth  born  between  713  and  716 
a.d.,  had  a  mother  of  Christian  descent — probably  a  Span¬ 
ish  mother,  descended  from  the  Visigoths,  Vandals,  or 
Suevi,  who  had  settled  Spain  in  the  fifth  century;  that  he 
had  a  grandmother,  born  in  the  Christian  province  of  North 
Africa;  and  a  great  grandmother,  born  in  the  Christian 
province  of  Egypt.  In  short,  he  was  of  seven-eighths 


128  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


Christian  blood  and  it  would  be  necessary  to  go  back  four 
generations  to  find  for  him  a  feminine  ancestor  of  Arab 
blood. 

68.  There  is  abundant  corroborative  evidence  of  this 
fact: 

I.  The  increasing  size  of  the  Moslem  army. 

II.  Ships  and  wine. 

These  will  be  considered  in  turn : — 

I.  The  increasing  size  of  the  Moslem  army. 

The  raiders  who  first  emerged  from  Arabia  under  the 
banner  of  the  Prophet,  were  comparatively  few  in  number. 
At  the  Battle  of  Kadesia,  in  637,  which  gave  the  Saracens 
possession  of  the  Persian  capital,  Ctesiphon,  the  Moslem 
forces  are  variously  stated  to  have  been  from  5000  to 
60,000  men.  Allowing  for  a  tendency  toward  exaggeration, 
the  smaller  number  is  probably  the  more  nearly  correct. 
The  numbers  who  raided  Egypt,  in  639  and  640,  are  not 
stated;  but  it  may  be  inferred  that  they  were  small,  because, 
with  any  imaginable  fecundity,  the  number  of  Arab  mothers 
could  not  have  been  sufficient  to  afford  large  forces  for 
operations  both  east  and  west  of  Arabia.  Moreover,  the 
Egyptian  Christians  of  that  period,  after  two  or  three  cen¬ 
turies  of  persistent  sterilization  of  their  best  women,  were 
in  no  condition  to  oppose  any  forces  of  fighting  men  what¬ 
soever.  A  small  band  of  brave  men  could  and  probably  did, 
conquer  Egypt  without  difficulty.  The  numbers  of  the 
Moslems,  in  670,  under  Okba  are  not  given;  but  they  are 
described  as  a  “picked  force,”  which  implies  that  their 
number  was  small. 

After  670,  when  the  Moslems  had  been  for  thirty  years 
settled  in  Christian  Egypt,  and  a  new  generation  of  fighting 
men  had  grown  up,  their  numbers  considerably  increased. 
In  672,  they  began  the  preparation  of  an  armada  for  a  naval 
expedition  against  Constantinople,  and  from  673  to  677 
they  besieged  that  city,  at  the  same  time  carrying  on  opera¬ 
tions  west  of  the  Libyan  desert.  It  is  inferable  that  these 


ISLAM 


129 


Moslems  were  born  in  Egypt  of  Christian  descent  on  their 
mother’s  side.  The  addition  of  these  Christian  mothers  to 
the  Moslem  group,  would  furnish  them  with  a  marked  in¬ 
crease  in  the  number  of  their  fighting  men,  and  would  ac¬ 
count  for  their  undertaking  a  naval  expedition.  Moslems 
of  an  Arab  father  and  mother  would  know  nothing  of  the 
sea.  They  failed  in  the  siege  of  Constantinople,  and,  in 
677,  their  land  army  was  totally  defeated,  30,000  of  the 
Moslems  being  killed. 

When  their  formidable  operations  next  commenced,  be¬ 
ginning  with  the  capture  of  Carthage  in  698,  their  successful 
sweep  across  North  Africa  in  704-709,  and  the  invasion  and 
subjugation  of  Spain  in  711-713,  another  generation  of 
Moslem  fighting  men  had  grown  up  since  the  defeats 
and  disasters  around  Constantinople.1  It  is  impossible 
to  suppose  that  this  new  generation  was  furnished  by  the 
Arab  mothers.  It  could  easily  have  been  born  to  Egyptian 
mothers  of  Christian  descent.  After  all  the  operations  in 
North  Africa,  there  are  said  to  have  been  20,000  Moslems 
in  the  forces  that  entered  Spain  in  711 ;  and  30,000  more  to 
reinforce  them  in  712.  But  the  army  which  advanced 
from  Spain  to  France  twenty  years  later  in  731,  numbered 
500,000  men.  How  can  such  an  increase  in  the  Moslem 
fighting  forces  be  accounted  for,  except  by  supposing  that 
they  were  born  of  Christian  Spanish  mothers? 

II.  Ships  and  Wine. 

To  Arabs  of  pure  Arab  blood,  naval  enterprise  would  be 
inconceivable.  The  first  Moslems  knew  nothing  of  ships 
or  of  the  sea.  Their  first  maritime  undertaking  was  the 
naval  expedition  against  Constantinople  in  672,  thirty- 
one  years  after  the  occupation  of  Egypt.  Twenty-six 
years  later,  in  698,  another  great  fleet  was  prepared  for 
operations  against  Carthage,  and,  in  711-712,  a  third 
carried  their  forces  from  Africa  to  Spain.  The  first  of  these 
naval  operations  took  place  one  generation,  and  the  second 

1  “  In  little  more  than  a  single  generation  all  the  children  of  the  North 
of  Africa  were  speaking  Arabic.”  (Draper,  supra,  Chap.  XI.) 


VOL.  I — 9 


130  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


and  third  two  generations,  after  the  Moslem  seizure  of  the 
extensive  Christian  population  of  Alexandria  and  Egypt 
where  naval  operations  and  sea-borne  commerce  had  long 
been  carried  on.  The  inference  that  these  Moslems  de¬ 
rived  their  aptitude  for  naval  enterprise  from  Christian 
mothers,  is  irresistible. 

A  like  inference  may  be  drawn  from  the  first  Moslem  con¬ 
tact  with  wine.  The  description  of  the  Saracens  of  the 
fourth  century,  as  already  quoted  from  Ammianus  Mar- 
cellinus,  ends  with  ‘‘the  majority  of  them  we  have  seen  to 
be  entirely  ignorant  of  the  use  of  corn  and  wine.”  It  is  a 
universal  rule  (to  which  I  know  of  no  exception)  that  a  race 
which  has  never  tasted  wine,  gets  drunk  when  they  first 
obtain  it.  Such  was  the  case  with  the  Gauls,  a  white  Eu¬ 
ropean  people,  when  they  captured  Rome  400  B.c.  From 
that  time,  to  the  contact  of  the  wine-drinking  white  races 
with  savage  peoples  in  modern  history,  there  has  never  been 
known  a  race  of  non-drinking  ancestry  which  has  not 
quickly  and  easily  surrendered  to  alcoholic  temptation. 
The  Moslems  were  exposed  to  alcoholic  temptation  prob¬ 
ably  when  they  entered  North  Africa,  and  certainly  when 
they  entered  Spain.  In  the  latter  country,  they  adopted  and 
improved  the  cultivation  of  the  vine.  ‘  ‘  They  gave  to  Xeres 
and  Malaga  their  celebrity  for  wine” — (Draper,  supra). 
Yet  the  Moslems  did  not  succumb  to  drink,  easily  defeated 
in  a  single  battle  a  Christian  army  two  or  three  times  their 
number,  speedily  effected  the  conquest  of  the  entire  king¬ 
dom  of  the  Visigoths,  and,  twenty  years  later,  marched  un¬ 
impaired  and  with  greater  forces  to  seize  the  Christian 
lands  beyond  the  Pyrenees.  If  the  Saracens  who  invaded 
North  Africa  and  Spain  were  of  pure  Arab  blood,  descended 
from  Arab  mothers,  and  yet  withstood  alcoholic  temptation 
when  first  presented  to  them,  they  would  furnish  a  new  and, 
indeed,  a  miraculous  precedent  in  history.  If  they  were, 
however,  as  I  suppose,  only  one-eighth  Arab,  and  counted 
three  successive  generations  of  Christian  mothers  in  their 
immediate  ancestors,  their  temperance  would  be  accounted 


ISLAM 


131 

for.  They  were  descended  chiefly  from  alcoholized,  instead 
of  unalcoholized  blood. 

69.  The  evidence  of  ships  and  wine  is  equally  inconsist¬ 
ent  with  the  hypothesis  that  the  increased  number  of  Islam’s 
fighting  men  descended  from  the  non-Christian  Moors.  As 
the  white  inhabitants  of  western  Europe  were  called  indis¬ 
criminately  “Franks,”1  so  it  is  probable  that  the  dark-hued 
inhabitants  of  Northern  Africa  were  called  indiscriminately 
“Moors,”  without  special  reference  to  race  or  religion. 
The  word  “Moor”  in  its  strictest  ethnological  significance 
would  designate  a  people  as  ignorant  of  ships  and  wine  as  the 
Arabs.  By  the  hypothesis  of  a  Moorish  mother  it  would  be 
necessary  to  account  for  the  singular  phenomena  of  men  de¬ 
scended  on  both  sides  from  desert  tribes,  taking  suddenly 
and  successfully  to  naval  enterprise;  and  of  men,  whose 
progenitors  had  not  tasted  it,  resisting  the  temptation  of 
over-indulgence  in  wine.  Such  difficulties  vanish  if  it  is 
supposed  that  the  invading  Moslems  immediately  married, 
and  begot  their  children  upon,  the  Christian  women  of 
Egypt  and  North  Africa.  In  the  first  generation,  their 
descendants  were  one-half  Christian  blood;  in  the  second, 
three-fourths;  in  the  third,  seven-eights.  So  that  the  sol¬ 
diers  who  fought  under  the  banner  of  Islam  against  Charles 
Martel,  in  732,  were  one-eighth  Arab,  seven-eighths  Chris¬ 
tian  by  descent.  The  surviving  remnant  of  these  soldiers 
returned  to  Spain;  but  for  forty  years  longer  the  Moslems 
retained  their  hold  upon  the  province  of  Narbonne,  in 
France. 2 

1  A  name  of  some  German  tribes  between  the  Rhine  and  the  Weser 
had  spread  its  victorious  influence  over  the  greatest  part  of  Gaul,  Ger¬ 
many ,  and  Italy,  and  the  common  appellation  of  Franks  was  applied  by 
the  Greeks  and  Arabians  to  the  Christians  of  the  Latin  church,  the  na¬ 
tions  of  the  West,  who  stretched  beyond  their  knowledge  to  the  shores 
of  the  Atlantic  Ocean.  (Gibbon,  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire , 
Chap.  LIII.) 

2  “At  that  time  a  very  extensive  child  slave-trade  was  carried  on  with 
the  Saracens  through  the  medium  of  the  Jews,  ecclesiastics  as  well  as 
barons  selling  the  children  ot  their  serfs.”  (Draper,  supra,  Chap.  XII.) 


132  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


As  has  been  said  before,  it  is  inferable  that  both  in  Spain 
and  France  there  was  a  further  infusion  of  Christian  blood 
through  taking  wives  of  Christian  virgins.  These  wives, 
moreover,  were  of  the  white  races  of  northern  Europe — 
Franks,  Vandals,  Suevi,  Visigoths.  These  races  were  not 
of  the  old  Christian  stock  which,  in  the  fourth  century,  had 
been  impaired  by  the  sterilization  of  the  pious.  Their 
Christianity  was  of  a  later  date;  adverse  selection  of 
mothers  had  run  against  them  for  a  shorter  time ;  and  it  was 
now  stopped.  The  children  of  such  marriages  derived 
from  their  two  nearest  genetrices  the  best  Christian  blood  in 
Europe.  They  would  be  Moslem  in  religion ;  Arab  in  name, 
language  and  paternal  lineage;  one-sixteenth  Arab  by 
blood.1 

70.  The  rise  of  the  civilization  of  the  Caliphate  of 
Cordova,  therefore,  which  enabled  its  mathematicians, 
within  a  hundred  years  after  the  Battle  of  Tours,  to  calcu¬ 
late  with  scientific  accuracy  the  Obliquity  of  the  Ecliptic 
and  the  duration  of  the  year  (questions  which  Christendom 
would  hardly  consider  for  another  seven  centuries)  is  not 
really  so  dizzy  in  its  swiftness  and  its  height  as  at  first  would 
seem.  On  the  contrary,  it  could  be  predicted  with  mathe¬ 
matical  certainty.  For  centuries  the  Christian  Church  had 
preached,  and  devout  Christians  had  faithfully  practiced, 
the  consecration  of  cold  women  to  a  sterile  virginity.  Wher- 

1  Americans  will  readily  understand  what  took  place  if  they  will  sup¬ 
pose  that  a  band  of  Mexicans  raid  the  populous  city  of  New  Orleans,  and 
the  lower  Mississippi  valley ;  there  they  marry  and  form  a  permanent 
settlement.  In  the  next  generation  their  sons,  bom  to  a  Louisiana 
mother,  advance  as  far  as  Atlanta,  capture  and  occupy  the  intervening 
region,  marry  Georgian  girls,  and  settle  down.  The  sons  bom  of  Georgian 
mothers  advance  their  conquests  to  the  Potomac,  and  occupy  Washing¬ 
ton.  Their  sons,  having  a  Virginian  mother,  a  Georgian  grand-mother, 
and  a  Louisianian  great  grand-mother,  raid  New  York,  are  beaten,  and 
retire  again  to  the  valley  of  the  Potomac.  There  they  settle  and  marry 
native  Virginian  girls.  Their  descendants,  bom  of  two  generations  of 
Virginian,  a  third  of  Georgian,  and  a  fourth  of  Louisianian  genetrices 
would  be  exactly  as  much  “Mexican”  as  the  Spanish  Moslems  were 
“Arab.” 


ISLAM 


133 


ever  the  Moslems  conquered,  this  practice  was  reversed. 
Their  religion  sanctioned,  their  taste  approved,  and  their 
passions  stimulated  the  intensive  improvement  of  posterity 
by  impressing  these  women  for  maternity.  The  steriliza¬ 
tion  of  the  pious  ceased.  All  those  *devout  and  chaste 
virgins,  who  would  have  been  instructed,  by  the  Christian 
Church,  to  subtract  their  virtues  from  posterity,  were,  by 
the  Moslem  victories,  given  into  the  hands  of  men  “whose 
licentious  passions  were  incredible.”  It  was  impossible 
for  them  to  escape  maternity,  and  their  enforced  fruitful¬ 
ness  quickly  changed  the  region  of  Moslem  rule  from  a 
spiritual  desert  to  a  garden. 


CHAPTER  VIII 


POLYGAMY 

71.  Observe  the  difference  in  quality  of  a  group  of 
emigrants  who  leave  their  native  country  for  a  distant  land 
under  the  following  conditions : — 

I.  Voluntarily  facing  peril  and  privation  for  religious 
or  political  freedom. 

II.  Voluntarily  emigrating  for  economic  betterment. 

III.  Urged  and  assisted  to  emigrate  by  steamship 
agents  who  paint  in  glowing  terms  the  ease  and 
riches  of  the  new  land. 

Regardless  of  the  numbers  of  each  group,  it  is  evident 
that  Group  I  would  be  of  a  different  and  of  a  higher  quality 
than  Group  III.  Thus,  the  quality  of  the  pilgrims  on  the 
Mayflower  is  not  of  necessity  a  continuing  criterion  whereby 
to  judge  the  quality  of  all  emigrants  from  Europe  to  the 
United  States  in  succeeding  generations  or  centuries. 

This  is  a  useful  illustration  of  the  differing  effects  of 
polygamy  on  the  quality  of  posterity.  Like  emigration, 
polygamy  does  not  necessarily  in  and  of  itself  establish  and 
maintain  a  fixed  spiritual  quality  among  polygamous 
peoples.  As  in  all  other  cases,  their  quality  varies  accord¬ 
ing  to  the  improvement  or  deterioration  of  posterity;  and 
posterity  improves  where  maternity  is  impressed  upon  cold 
women,  and  deteriorates  when  it  is  not.  The  effect  of 
polygamy,  therefore,  varies  according  to  whether  or  not 
it  makes  cold  women  fruitful. 

When  pioneers,  exalted  by  religious  fanaticism,  enter  a 
new  land,  the  first  progenitors  are  picked  men.  Usually 
the  men  greatly  outnumber  the  women;  sometimes,  as  in 

134 


POLYGAMY 


135 


the  Moslem  invasion  of  Spain,  the  invaders  are  only  men; 
always,  if  they  are  warriors,  these  men  are  young,  lusty, 
and  vigorous.  Constant  warfare  against  the  invaded 
people ;  lack  of  tranquillity  and  inherited  wealth ;  the  hard¬ 
ship  of  continuous  movement;  and,  finally,  the  ceaseless 
labor  involved  in  building  up  new  homes;  all  tend  to  strike 
from  the  roll  of  fathers  those  who  are  weak  or  feeble  or  old. 
Polygamy,  for  such  men,  is  usually  reduced  to  its  lowest 
terms  of  actual  necessity.  Stern  labor  confronts  them,  and 
they  are  little  tempted  to  multiply  the  voluptuous  inmates 
of  their  households.  Luxury  and  ostentation  come  later  with 
inherited  wealth.  For  many  of  them,  not  poverty  alone, 
but  a  scarcity  of  women  must  have  made  monogamy  a 
necessity,  notwithstanding  even  a  religious  sanction  of 
polygamy.  In  these  conditions  warriors  and  pioneers, 
even  with  plural  wives,  will  permit  none  to  escape  mater¬ 
nity.  At  the  beginning  of  polygamy,  therefore,  cold 
women  are  not  suffered  to  extinguish  their  strain.  Ma¬ 
ternity  is  pressed  upon  all  available  women  to  their  full 
bearing  capacity.  There  is  evidence  of  this  among  the 
early  settlers  of  Israel  in  the  land  of  Canaan  as  well  as 
among  the  Moslem  pioneers  of  Spain. 

The  first  evidence  is  given  in  the  Book  of  Judges,  enumer¬ 
ating  the  sons  born  to  Gideon  and  his  successors. 


Judges : — 

VIII.  30 — Gideon .  70  sons 

X.  4 — Jair,  a  Gileadite .  30  sons 

XII.  9 — Ibzan  of  Bethlehem .  30  sons 

30  daughters 

XII.  14 — Abdon  a  Pirathonite .  40  sons 


30  nephews 

In  the  Moslem  conquest  of  Spain,  even  larger  numbers  are 
mentioned  by  Draper.  He  says  that  there  were  families  of 
more  than  one  hundred  and  eighty  children.  ( Intellectual 
Development  of  Europe,  Chap.  XI.) 


136  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


Such  families  among  pioneers  mean  exceptionally  lusty 
husbands.  Their  effect  is  a  rapid  increase  in  the  numbers 
of  the  race,  with  no  deterioration  of  quality,  because,  for 
the  time  being,  polygamy  does  not  permit  cold  women  to 
extinguish  their  strain. 

As  time  passes,  the  effect  of  polygamy  is  reversed.  Men 
of  the  stamp  of  Gideon  or  David  accumulate  property, 
found  families  and  dynasties,  die  and  leave  their  name  and 
wealth  to  their  descendants.  Presently,  it  is  not  the  active 
and  vigorous  who  have  plural  wives.  Polygamy  is  in¬ 
dulged  in  by  those  who  inherit  wealth  and  love  ostentation. 
These  embrace  it  for  the  enjoyment  of  sensual  luxury. 
Their  wives  are  multiplied  to  stimulate  the  senses,  to  gratify 
the  eye  or  to  please  the  taste;  but  each  new  virgin  that 
enters  the  seraglio  must  whet  a  sexual  appetite  jaded  by  her 
predecessors  and  dulled  by  time.  In  a  few  generations, 
offspring  do  not  increase  as  wives  increase.  In  the  reign  of 
Solomon  and  his  successors,  large  families  of  children  are 
no  longer  recorded.  It  is  significant  that  Gideon  is  said  to 
have  had  seventy  sons,  and  “many  wives.”  Solomon  had 
seven  hundred  wives  and  three  hundred  concubines ;  but  the 
number  of  his  children  is  not  stated.  So  that  in  the  earlier 
period  the  chroniclers  found  it  worth  while  to  enumerate 
children  and  not  wives;  in  the  later  wives  and  not  children. 

The  change  affects  the  quality,  as  well  as  the  quantity,  of 
posterity.  The  enfeebled  master  of  a  seraglio,  supported 
by  inherited  wealth,  is  more  likely  to  beget  children  upon 
those  inmates  who  beguile,  than  upon  those  who  repel  him. 
In  such  a  household,  the  cold  women  will  escape  maternity 
altogether.  As  it  was  with  the  Jews  in  Palestine,  so  eventu¬ 
ally  it  was  with  the  Moslems  in  Spain.  Polygamy  gave  to 
cold  women  a  means  of  escaping  repugnant  coverture.  The 
Moslem  husband  found  it  easy  to  replace  a  cold  wife  with 
an  ardent  one;  so  that  after  the  age  of  pioneering  was 
passed,  Moslem  civilization  began  to  decline.  Plural 
marriage,  which  had  first  increased  the  quantity  of  poster¬ 
ity,  soon  began  to  debase  its  quality. 


POLYGAMY 


137 


72,  Abundant  evidence  may  be  found  of  this  change. 
An  excellent  description  of  the  polygamous  household  of  an 
oriental  potentate,  whose  titles,  dominions,  power,  and 
wealth  are  inherited,  is  given  by  Marco  Polo  on  his  visit  to 
the  court  of  Kublai. 

‘‘He  has  four  wives  of  the  first  rank,  who  are  esteemed 
legitimate,  and  the  eldest  born  son  of  any  one  of  these  suc¬ 
ceeds  to  the  empire,  upon  the  decease  of  the  grand  khan. 
They  bear  equally  the  title  of  empress,  and  have  their  sepa¬ 
rate  courts.  None  of  them  have  fewer  than  three  hundred 
young  female  attendants  of  great  beauty,  together  with  a 
multitude  of  youths  as  pages,  and  other  eunuchs,  as  well  as 
ladies  of  the  bed-chamber;  so  that  the  number  of  persons 
belonging  to  each  of  their  respective  courts  amounts  to  ten 
thousand.  When  his  majesty  is  desirous  of  the  company  of 
one  of  his  empresses,  he  either  sends  for  her,  or  goes  himself 
to  her  palace.  Besides  these,  he  has  many  concubines  pro¬ 
vided  for  his  use,  from  a  province  of  Tartary  named  Ungut, 
having  a  city  of  the  same  name,  the  inhabitants  of  which  are 
distinguished  for  beauty  of  features  and  fairness  of  com¬ 
plexion.  Thither  the  grand  khan  sends  his  officers  every 
second  year,  or  oftener,  as  it  may  happen  to  be  his  pleasure, 
who  collect  for  him,  to  the  number  of  four  or  five  hundred, 
or  more,  of  the  handsomest  of  the  young  women,  according 
to  the  estimation  of  beauty  communicated  to  them  in  their 
instructions.  The  mode  of  their  appreciation  is  as  follows. 
Upon  the  arrival  of  these  commissioners,  they  give  orders 
for  assembling  all  the  young  women  of  the  province,  and 
appoint  qualified  persons  to  examine  them,  who,  upon 
careful  inspection  of  each  of  them  separately,  that  is  to  say 
of  the  hair,  the  countenance,  the  eyebrows,  the  mouth,  the 
lips,  and  other  features,  as  well  as  the  symmetry  with  each 
other,  estimate  their  value  at  sixteen,  seventeen,  eighteen 
or  twenty,  or  more  carats,  according  to  the  greater  or  less 
degree  of  beauty.  The  number  required  by  the  grand  khan, 
at  the  rates,  perhaps,  of  twenty  or  twenty-one  carats,  to 
which  their  commission  was  limited,  is  then  selected  from 
the  rest,  and  they  are  conveyed  to  his  court.^  Upon  their 
arrival  in  his  presence,  he  causes  a  new  examination  to  be 
made  by  a  different  set  of  inspectors  and  from  amongst 
them  a  further  selection  takes  place  when  thirty  or  forty 
are  retained  for  his  own  chamber  at  a  higher  valuation. 


138  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


These,  in  the  first  instance,  are  committed  separately  to  the 
care  of  the  wives  of  certain  of  the  nobles,  whose  duty  it  is 
to  observe  them  attentively  during  the  course  of  the  night, 
in  order  to  ascertain  that  they  have  not  any  concealed  im¬ 
perfections,  that  they  sleep  tranquilly,  do  not  snore,  have 
sweet  breath,  and  are  free  from  unpleasant  scent  in  any 
part  of  the  body.  Having  undergone  this  rigorous  scrutiny, 
they  are  divided  into  parties  of  five,  one  of  which  parties 
attends  during  three  days  and  three  nights,  in  his  majesty’s 
interior  apartment,  where  they  are  to  perform  every  service 
that  is  required  of  them,  and  he  does  with  them  as  he  likes. 
When  this  term  is  completed,  they  are  relieved  by  another 
party,  and  in  this  manner  successively,  until  the  whole 
number  have  taken  their  turn;  when  the  first  five  recom¬ 
mence  their  attendance.  But  whilst  the  one  party  offi¬ 
ciates  in  the  inner  chamber,  another  is  stationed  in  the  outer 
apartment  adjoining;  in  order  that  if  his  majesty  should 
have  occasion  for  anything,  such  as  drink  or  victuals,  the 
former  may  signify  his  commands  to  the  latter  by  whom 
the  article  required  is  immediately  procured;  and  thus  the 
duty  of  waiting  upon  his  majesty’s  person  is  exclusively 
performed  by  these  young  females.”  ( Travels  of  Marco 
Polo ,  Chap.  IV,  Bk.  II.) 


This  description  of  the  harem  of  Kublai,  including  most 
of  its  details,  may  probably  be  accepted  as  a  fair  description 
of  the  harems  of  other  oriental  potentates.  The  govern¬ 
ment  of  the  harem  must  have  been  always  much  the  same; 
and  however  the  number  of  inmates  may  have  varied,  they 
must  have  been  always  sufficiently  numerous,  so  that  the 
effect  of  harem  life  in  the  selection  of  mothers  could  not 
have  varied  much,  and  must  have  been  always  bad.  Most 
Christians  have  read  the  biblical  account  of  Solomon’s 
harem  with  its  thousand  inmates.  The  harem  of  Abd-er- 
Rahman  III,  at  Cordova,  in  the  tenth  century,  is  thus 
described : 


“The  number  of  male  servants  in  the  palace  has  been 
estimated  at  thirteen  thousand  seven  hundred  and  fifty,  to 
whom  the  daily  allowance  of  flesh  meat,  exclusive  of  fowls 
and  fish,  was  thirteen  thousand  pounds;  and  the  number  of 


POLYGAMY 


139 


women  of  various  kinds  and  classes,  comprising  the  harem 
of  the  Khalif,  or  waiting  upon  them,  is  said  to  have 
amounted  to  six  thousand  three  hundred  and  fourteen. 
The  Slav  pages  and  eunuchs  were  three  thousand  three  hun¬ 
dred  and  fifty,  to  whom  thirteen  thousand  pounds  of  flesh 
meat  were  distributed  daily,  some  receiving  ten  pounds 
each,  and  some  less,  according  to  their  rank  and  station, 
exclusive  of  fowls,  partridges,  and  birds  of  other  sorts, 
game  and  fish.  The  daily  allowance  of  bread  for  the  fish  in 
the  pond  of  Ez-Zahra  was  twelve  thousand  loaves,  besides 
six  measures  of  black  pulse  which  were  every  day  macerated 
in  the  waters.  These  and  other  particulars  may  be  found 
at  full  length  in  the  histories  of  the  times,  and  recorded 
by  orators  and.  poets  who  have  exhausted  the  mines  of 
eloquence  in  their  description.”  (Stanley  Lane-Poole, 
Moors  in  Spain}  Chap.  VIII.) 

Akbar’s  zanana  in  the  seventeenth  century,  “contained 
more  than  5000  ladies,  each  of  whom  had  separate  apart¬ 
ments;  they  were  attended  by  an  adequate  staff  of  servants, 
and  watched  in  successive  circles  by  female  guards,  eu¬ 
nuchs,  Rajputs,  and  the  porters  at  the  gates,  apart  from  the 
troops  stationed  on  all  four  sides  of  the  buildings.  ’  ’  (More¬ 
land,  India  at  the  Death  of  Akbar,  Chap.  III.)  It  is  evident 
that  in  harems  such  as  these  cold  women  would  escape 
maternity  as  easily  as  in  a  convent.  Had  the  thousand  in¬ 
mates  of  Solomon’s  harem  been  given  each  to  one  husband 
in  indissoluble  monogamous  marriage,  virile  pressure  upon 
them  would  have  been  multiplied  a  thousand  times.  Under 
this  pressure,  many  of  the  colder  ones  must  have  become 
fruitful. 

And  while  seraglios  as  large  as  these  were  maintained 
only  by  sovereigns,  their  wealthier  subjects  undoubtedly 
entertained  the  same  ideals,  and,  to  the  extent  of  their 
means,  faithfully  copied  their  sovereign’s  example.  Tran¬ 
quil  prosperity  and  inherited  wealth,  quite  changed  the 
effect  of  polygamy  upon  posterity.  From  an  institution 
which  multiplied  cold  women,  it  changed  to  an  institution 
which  extinguished  them.  Evidence  of  this  change  may 
be  found  in  their  posterity.  The  immediate  successors  of 


140  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


the  Moslem  pioneers  show  clearly  the  introduction  of  a 
strain  of  sexual  coldness.  “Their  religious  sentiment  and 
sedate  character  caused  them  to  abominate  the  lewdness  of 
our  classical  mythology,  and  to  denounce  indignantly  any 
connexion  between  the  licentious,  impure  Olympian  Jove 
and  the  Most  High  God  as  an  insufferable  and  unpardon¬ 
able  blasphemy.”  (Draper,  Intellectual  Development  of 
Europe ,  Vol.  II,  Chap.  II.)  They  held  in  contempt  “the 
woman-worshippers  and  polytheistic  savages  beyond  the 
Pyrenees.”  {Ibid.) 

73.  The  rise  of  Moslem  civilization,  therefore,  is  ac¬ 
counted  for  by  the  following  evidence : 

I.  The  first  Moslems  to  leave  Arabia  were  men  of  ex¬ 
ceptional  lust  and  vigor.  In  one  hundred  years,  they  had 
swept  from  India  to  the  Atlantic  Ocean,  covering  Persia, 
Syria,  Egypt,  Africa,  and  Spain.1 

II.  So  rapid  a  sweep  in  so  short  a  time,  meant  that  the 
males  of  each  succeeding  generation  obtained  their  wives 
from  a  new  population.  The  only  Arabs  with  Arab  mothers 
were  those  who  first  left  Arabia.  All  their  successors  were 
descended  from  mothers  of  the  conquered  lands. 

III.  In  Persia,  alone,  these  mothers  were  drawn  from  a 
polygamous  population.  In  Syria,  Egypt,  Africa,  and 
Spain,  they  were  drawn  from  a  monogamous  Christian 
population;  in  Syria,  Egypt  and  Africa,  from  a  population 
which  from  the  fourth  century  had  been  subjected  to  the 
debasing  effect  of  the  perennial  sterilization  of  cold  women. 
In  Spain,  alone,  mothers  were  obtained  from  a  Christian 
monogamous  people  of  the  white  races  of  Northern  Europe 
where  the  Christian  sterilization  of  cold  women  had  begun 
a  century  or  two  centuries  later  than  in  Syria,  Egypt,  and 
Africa. 

1  “One  hundred  years  after  his  flight  from  Mecca  the  arms  and  the 
reign  of  his  successors  extended  from  India  to  the  Atlantic  Ocean,  over 
the  various  and  distant  provinces  which  may  be  comprised  under  the 
names  of  I.  Persia;  II.  Syria;  III.  Egypt;  IV.  Africa;  and  V.  Spain.” 
(Gibbon,  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire ,  Chap.  LI.) 


POLYGAMY 


141 

IV.  In  all  these  lands,  the  Moslem  inundation  at  first 
reversed  the  Christian  sterilization  of  the  pious ;  and  stopped 
the  adverse  selection  of  ardent  women  for  maternity,  and 
cold  ones  for  sterility.  The  victorious  Moslems  impressed 
maternity  upon  all  women  alike. 

V.  This  effect  was  immediate  and  short  lived.  For  a 
century,  each  generation  of  Moslems  received  an  infusion  of 
new  blood  from  mothers  of  the  newly  conquered  peoples. 
After  the  first  century  of  Moslem  conquest,  there  was  no 
considerable  addition  of  new  blood.  The  Moslems  inter¬ 
bred. 

VI.  The  Moslem  intellect  reached  its  zenith  in  Spain, 
where  Moslems  descended  from  a  Christian  monogamous 
population  of  the  white  races  of  Europe;  rose  to  a  lesser 
height  in  Persia,  and  India,  where  their  mothers  were 
selected  from  a  non-Christian  polygamous  Asiatic  people; 
and  did  not  rise  at  all  in  Arabia  where  they  continued  to 
descend  from  Arab  mothers. 

VII.  Moslem  civilization  maintained  itself  in  Spain 
about  700  years;  in  Persia  only  300  years;  in  India  and 
Syria  it  was  over-whelmed  by  the  advance  of  the  Mongols 
in  500  years. 

VIII.  The  Moslem  rise  corresponded  in  time  to  the 
first  century  of  conquest,  when  it  was  receiving  continuous 
infusions  of  new  blood  through  conquered  mothers.  It 
lasted  two  or  three  generations  thereafter,  until  this  blood 
had  spent  itself  and  cold  women  were  again  sterilized 
through  polygamy.  From  that  time,  a  decline  set  in  which 
has  continued  ever  since. 

IX.  In  the  pioneer  century  of  Moslem  conquests,  the 
practice  of  polygamy  enforced  the  maternity  of  cold  women 
and  multiplied  their  posterity.  After  the  first  century, 
this  effect  was  reversed.  Moslem  power  and  intellect  rose 
and  fell  accordingly. 

X.  So  that,  in  Moslem  civilization,  the  evidence  accords 
exactly  with  the  mathematical  expectation.  Wherever 
maternity  was  effectually  impressed  upon  the  best  selection 


142  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


of  mothers  (as  in  the  first  century  of  the  Moslem  conquest 
of  Spain)  posterity  shows  the  greatest  improvement,  and 
civilization  its  greatest  height.  Where  there  was  no  im¬ 
proved  selection  of  mothers  (as  in  Arabia)  there  was  no 
improvement  of  posterity,  and  no  augmentation  of  intellect. 
And  where  the  selection  of  mothers  was  not  so  good  as  in 
Spain,  but  better  than  in  Arabia,  the  augmentation  of  the 
Moslem  intellect  was  less  than  in  Spain,  and  greater  than 
in  Arabia. 


CHAPTER  IX 


EUROPE  FROM  THE  FIFTH  TO  THE  TENTH  CENTURY 

74.  A  survey  of  Europe  during  five  centuries  from  the 
barbarian  inundation  of  the  Western  Empire  of  Rome  in 
the  fifth  century,  to  the  tenth  century,  shows  three  large 
groups. 

I.  The  Eastern  Empire:  Constantinople  and  those  of  its 
dominions  which  had  not  fallen  before  the  barbarians. 

This  group  was  orthodox  Christian;  descended  directly 
and  uninterruptedly  from  the  ancient  Roman  civilization; 
called  themselves  at  first  “Romans,”  and  later  (when  the 
Greek  language  became  universal)  “Romaoi.”  They 
provided  most  of  the  urban  population  with  work  and 
rations;  chained  the  agricultural  population  to  the  soil; 
pursued  without  interruption  the  sterilization  of  pious  and 
cold  women;  became  addicted  to  idolatry;  exhibited  bitter 
and  unbroken  religious  intolerance;  inherited,  preserved, 
and  continued  an  oriental  government,  taxation,  and 
criminal  procedure;  displayed  to  perfection  the  oriental 
conception  of  the  relations  of  monarch  and  subjects,  and 
characteristic  oriental  vices  of  long  inherited  slavery,  in¬ 
cluding  gelded  slaves;  and  passed  the  whole  five  centuries 
(and  five  succeeding  centuries)  without  a  spark  of  spiritual 
exaltation  to  illuminate  the  darkness  descending  upon  them. 
Though  on  European  soil,  they  were  completely  and  per¬ 
fectly  oriental. 

II.  The  second  group  consisted  of  the  Spanish  inhabi¬ 
tants  of  the  Caliphate  of  Cordova.  These  were  Moslem  in 
religion;  of  nearly  pure  Christian  descent;  worshipped  an 
invisible  God;  banned  idols;  exhibited  more  religious  toler- 

i43 


144  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


ance  than  any  other  Europeans  of  the  age;  obeyed  in 
principle  a  theocratic  government,  but  in  practice  a  despot¬ 
ism  modified  by  the  precepts  of  the  Koran  which  ruler  and 
subjects  were  alike  bound  to  obey;  enjoyed  a  moderate 
taxation  and  greater  stability  of  private  property  than  any¬ 
where  else  in  Europe  at  that  time ;  they  had  a  large  popula¬ 
tion  of  freemen;  like  the  Eastern  Empire,  inherited  slavery, 
including  gelded  slaves;  displayed  an  augmentation  of  the 
human  intellect  till  then  unexampled;  and  added  to  art,  to 
science,  and  to  learning,  so  much,  that  modern  civilization 
owes  to  them  a  great  debt.  To  Constantinople  it  owes 
nothing. 

In  a  comparison  of  the  realms  ruled  respectively  from 
Constantinople  and  Cordova,  I  do  not  mention  differences 
of  education,  for  each  had  educational  institutions  con¬ 
ducted  by  their  respective  churches.  I  do  not  mention 
differences  in  their  marriage  institutions,  for  divorce,  con¬ 
cubinage  and  monasticism  in  Constantinople  equally  with 
inherited  polygamy  in  Cordova,  were  perfectly  adapted  to 
the  sterilization  of  cold  women.  Both  these  groups,  accord¬ 
ingly,  declined,  the  one  from  twilight,  the  other  from  high- 
noon,  to  darkness. 

From  this  period  the  histories  of  the  Byzantine  and  Mos¬ 
lem  empires  run  parallel.  Allowing  for  some  oscillations, 
the  boundaries  of  both  empires  continuously  contracted  as 
their  civilizations  continuously  declined.  Both  empires 
persisted  for  many  centuries,  but  were  finally  overthrown 
by  savage  incursions;  the  empire  of  Constantinople  by  the 
non-Christian  Turks,  the  empire  of  the  Caliphs  by  the  non- 
Moslem  Mongols.  Lands  that  were  once  fruitful  and  popu¬ 
lous,  became,  under  each  religion  a  desert  waste.  But  both 
Christian  and  Moslem  religions  have  survived. 

III.  The  remainder  of  Europe  constituted  the  third 
group.  These  were  formed  of  the  successive  barbarian 
invaders  of  the  former  Roman  provinces;  and  of  the  bar¬ 
barian  savages  of  northern  Europe  beyond  the  Roman 


EUROPE  FROM  FIFTH  TO  TENTH  CENTURY  145 

frontier.  This  group  was  divisible  into  many  smaller  ones. 
But  like  causes  operated  upon  these  smaller  groups,  and  had 
like  effects.  Their  histories  diverge  from  the  histories  of 
Constantinople  and  Cordova,  but  run  parallel  to  each  other. 
All  of  them  shared  in  common  the  submergence  of  the  dark 
ages,  and  the  final  emergence  into  the  light  of  modern 
civilization.  It  is  interesting  to  observe,  first,  with  what 
accuracy  the  history  of  these  several  groups  follows  mathe¬ 
matical  expectation  for  upward  of  500  years. 

75.  If  the  fall  of  Roman  civilization  after  the  Christiani¬ 
zation  of  the  Roman  Empire  was  due  to  the  Christian 
doctrine,  then  universal,  of  the  sterilization  of  pious  and  cold 
women;  and  if  this  continued  to  be  the  Christian  precept 
and  practice  for  five  centuries  longer;  then  its  effect  upon 
the  barbarian  invaders,  as  they  became  Christian,  would 
be  the  same  as  upon  the  Romans.  There  is  evidence  that 
Christian  precept  and  practice  did  so  continue.  Smith  and 
Cheatham’s  Dictionary  of  Christian  Antiquities  enumerates 
1481  celibate  religious  houses  founded  in  Christendom  from 
the  fourth  to  the  ninth  century  inclusive.  Omitting  those  of 
Constantinople,  Asia,  Africa,  and  some  few  others  whose 
location  is  doubtful,  the  numbers  of  these  in  the  principal 
countries  of  Western  Europe  may  be  given  with  approximate 
accuracy  as  follows: 

Italy 

Fourth  Century .... 

Fifth  “  .... 

Sixth  “  .... 

Seventh  “  .... 

Eighth 

Ninth  “  .... 

France  (including  Belgium) 


Fourth  Century .  4 

Fifth  “  7 

Sixth  “  76 


5 
12 

16 

12 

62 

6 


VOL.  I — IO 


146  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


France  (including  Belgium) — Continued 

Seventh  Century .  91 

Eighth  “  40 

Ninth  “  26 

Spain  (including  Portugal) 

Sixth  Century .  6 

Seventh  “  2 

Eighth  “  5 

Ireland 

Fourth  Century .  2 

Fifth  “  59 

Sixth  “  80 

Seventh  “  83 

Eighth  “  20 

Ninth  “  5 

England 

Fourth  Century .  1 

Fifth  “  3 

Sixth  “  6 

Seventh  “  60 

Eighth  “  25 

Ninth  “  2 

Scotland 

Sixth  Century .  2 

Seventh  “  4 

Germany 

Fifth  Century .  2 

Sixth  “  2 

Seventh  “  7 

Eighth  “  50 

Ninth  “  4 


EUROPE  FROM  FIFTH  TO  TENTH  CENTURY  147 


From  the  foregoing  tables,  it  is  plain  that,  after  the  bar¬ 
barian  invasion  of  Italy  and  France,  the  sterilization  of  the 
pious  continued  and  increased  up  to  the  ninth  century.  In 
Spain,  the  early  Christian  records  were  probably  obliterated 
by  the  Moslem  invasion ;  and  it  was  not  until  after  the  Chris¬ 
tian  reconquest  that  religious  houses  were  again  founded 
there.  In  Ireland,  during  the  fifth,  sixth,  seventh  and 
eighth  centuries,  the  new  foundations  of  monastic  institu¬ 
tions  numbered  242.  In  England,  following  the  conversion 
of  the  Anglo-Saxons,  there  were  85  new  foundations  in  two 
centuries.  In  Germany,  there  were  50  in  the  eighth  century 
alone.  In  Western  Christendom  as  a  whole,  during  the 
seventh  and  eighth  centuries,  the  religious  sterilization  of 
the  pious  and  chaste  was  continued  uninterruptedly  on  an 
extensive  scale  after  the  conversion  of  the  barbarian  in¬ 
vaders. 

76.  It  would  be  expected,  then,  that  the  debasement  of 
posterity  by  the  Christian  precept  and  practice  of  that  age, 
would  be  first  noticed  in  the  barbarians  who  were  first  con¬ 
verted;  would  be  most  noticeable  in  those  who  were  most 
orthodox  and  most  devout;  that  the  national  strength  of 
these  people  after  their  conversion  to  Christianity  would 
soon  be  sapped;  that  the  barbarian  races  which  were  not 
yet  Christianized  would  preserve  their  national  vigor;  and 
that  consequently  a  tide  of  conquest  would  flow  uninter¬ 
ruptedly  for  many  centuries  against  the  Christian  world; 
so  that  the  barbarians  first  converted  to  Christianity  would 
rapidly  succumb  and  give  way  to  new  invasions  by  new 
barbarians,  whose  conversion  was  of  a  later  date. 

Such  being  the  expectation  of  mathematical  law,  observe 
the  historical  evidence  as  to  these  successive  groups  and  see 
the  expectation  fulfilled. 

77.  In  Africa ,  the  ancient  Christian  civilization  was 
completely  conquered,  and  the  province  occupied  by  the 
Vandals,  who  had  marched  from  northern  Europe  to  the 
Straits  of  Gibraltar,  and  crossed  thence  into  Africa.  They 
entered,  in  A.D.  429,  and  established  the  Vandal  empire: 


148  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


were  converted  to  Christianity;  became  bigoted  religious 
persecutors;  and  were  extinguished  upon  the  reconquest  of 
the  province  by  Belisarius  in  534.  The  Christian  Vandals, 
therefore,  lasted  about  one  hundred  years.  The  province  of 
North  Africa  received  a  further  infusion  of  European  Chris¬ 
tian  blood  by  the  emigration  from  Italy  in  568;  and  in  705- 
709  the  African  Christians  were  again  overrun,  and  for  the 
last  time,  by  Moslems.  From  the  Christian  reconquest 
of  the  province  in  534  to  the  Moslem  conquest,  is  about 
170  years. 

78.  In  Greece ,  the  original  Christian  population,  de¬ 
scended  from  those  Christians  who  had  received  the  epistles 
of  the  apostle  Paul,  and  who  had  suffered  the  adverse  selec¬ 
tive  influence  of  the  sterilization  of  the  pious  in  the  fourth 
and  fifth  centuries,  was  invaded,  conquered,  and  finally 
displaced  by  the  Avars  and  other  Slavonian  tribes.1  These 
incursions  took  place  in  the  years  588  and  589  and  there¬ 
after.  The  invaders  possessed  a  great  part  of  the  country 
from  the  frontiers  of  Macedonia  to  the  south  of  the  Pelopon¬ 
nesus  and  “had  so  completely  separated  their  conquests 
from  the  Roman  empire  that  no  Roman  (that  is  to  say  Greek 
connected  with  the  imperial  administration)  dared  to  enter 
the  country.”  (Finlay,  Greece  Under  the  Romans ,  Chap. 
IV,  Sect.  VI.) 

“In  the  Island  of  Sicily  and  in  the  south  of  Italy,  the 
great  bulk  of  the  population  was  Greek  both  in  language  and 

1  The  question  of  the  Slavs  in  Greece  is  a  very  obscure  one,  and  has 
engaged  the  attention  of  many  of  our  best  scholars.  Prof.  Fallmerayer, 
for  instance,  maintains  that  the  Hellenic  race  in  Europe  was  ex¬ 
terminated  by  the  Slavonians,  and  that  the  present  inhabitants  of  Greece 
are  Byzantinized  Slavonians.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  Slavonians 
formed  the  bulk  of  the  population  of  Greece  for  several  centuries.  This 
is  expressly  stated  by  the  Emperor  Constantine  Porphyrogenitus,  who 
refers  the  completion  of  the  Slavonic  colonization  of  Greece  to  the  time 
of  the  great  pestilence,  which  depopulated  the  East  in  a.d.  746.  In  the 
same  century  the  European  navigators  spoke  of  the  Peloponnesus  as 
“Slavonian  land.”  (Gibbon,  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire , 
Chap.  LIII.) 


EUROPE  FROM  FIFTH  TO  TENTH  CENTURY  149 


manners  and  few  portions  of  the  Greek  race  had  succeeded 
so  well  in  preserving  their  wealth  and  property  uninjured.” 
(Finlay,  supra ,  Chap.  V,  Sect.  VII.) 

Both  Greece  and  Sicily,  Mediterranean  countries,  were 
exposed  to  the  attacks  of  the  Moslems.  The  newly  Chris¬ 
tianized  Slavonian  inhabitants  of  Greece  never  came  under 
Moslem  rule.  In  Sicily,  the  old  Christian  population,  de¬ 
based  by  many  centuries  of  the  sterilization  of  its  cold 
women,  was  conquered  first  by  the  Saracens,  who  were 
never  Christian,  and  next  by  the  Normans  who  were  not 
Christian  till  the  end  of  the  tenth  century.  The  Saracens 
began  their  conquest  in  a.d.  827;  took  Syracuse  in  878;  and 
all  Sicily  in  965.  For  263  years  some  part  or  all  of  the  island 
was  under  Moslem  rule;  and,  by  Sicilian  Christians,  this 
rule  was  never  overthrown.  The  Normans,  however,  pagans 
until  the  tenth  century,  began  their  Sicilian  conquests  in 
1060,  and  completed  them  in  1090.  From  the  Moslem 
conquest  to  the  nineteenth  century,  the  ancient  Christian 
population  of  Sicily  was  handed  on  from  one  foreign  ruler  to 
another,  and  never  had  the  strength  to  rule  itself.  Its 
highest  civilization  after  the  fourth  century  was  attained 
under  the  rule  of  the  non-Christian  Moslems  and  the  newly 
Christianized  Normans. 

79.  Venice  was  founded  by  Christians  from  the  main¬ 
land,  in  the  fifth  or  sixth  century  a.d.  Historians  differ  as 
to  whether  its  first  settlers  fled  from  the  invasion  of  Attila, 
in  the  fifth  century,  or  that  of  the  Lombards  in  the  sixth. 
In  either  case,  it  is  certain  that  they  were  already  Chris¬ 
tians,  probably  orthodox;  and  that  Venice,  without  pagan 
invasion  or  conquest,  attained  a  high  degree  of  civilization 
and  power.  For  a  thousand  years  history  presents  the 
interesting  spectacle  of  two  commercial  cities,  seaports,  both 
Christian — Venice  and  Constantinople;  in  the  one,  civiliza¬ 
tion  during  this  period  continuously  rose — in  the  other,  it 
declined.  Venice  appears  to  have  suspended  for  ten  cen¬ 
turies  the  operation  of  those  laws  which  carried  all  other 


150  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


Christian  communities  down.  The  exception  is  only 
apparent. 

For  the  first  Venetians  the  sterilization  of  cold  women  was 
impossible.  They  had  no  lands  wherewith  to  endow  relig¬ 
ious  houses ;  no  agriculture,  no  serfs,  no  fields.  Their  settle¬ 
ment  was  made  on  islands  in  a  lagoon,  and,  until  commerce 
brought  them  wealth,  they  subsisted  by  their  fisheries. 
Meanwhile,  they  were  separated  from  the  Church  hierarchy 
by  the  disorders  of  the  times.  For  five  centuries,  Venice 
had  but  little  connection  with  Rome.  Constantinople, 
nominally  her  suzerain,  was  a  rival  in  trade;  and  the  in¬ 
terests  of  Venice,  during  this  period,  were  bound  up  more  in 
her  trade  with  non-Christians  than  in  her  intercourse  with 
Christians.  Pagan  blood,  instead  of  being  introduced  en 
bloc  by  conquest,  was  continuously  infused  by  commerce. 
The  Venetians  were  never  devout.  They  traded  with  the 
Moslems,  and  they  took  usury,  when  both  were  forbidden 
by  the  Church. 1 

1  In  1589  Vilagut  a  Benedictine  published  in  Venice  a  great  work  on 
usury,  which  he  defines  as  the  taking  of  anything  beyond  the  original 
loan;  and  declares  it  mortal  sin.  In  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  cen¬ 
tury  Onorato  Leotardi  published  another  folio  on  the  same  subject,  but 
even  more  extreme,  calling  money-lenders  not  only  robbers  but  mur¬ 
derers. 

In  either  century  no  opposition  was  made  to  this  theory  as  a  theory; 
as  to  practice,  Italian  traders  did  not  answer  theological  argument — 
but  simply  over-rode  it.  In  spite  of  theology,  great  banks  were  estab¬ 
lished,  and  especially  that  of  Venice  at  the  end  of  the  twelfth  century, 
and  those  of  Barcelona  and  Genoa  at  the  beginning  of  the  fifteenth. 
Nowhere  was  commerce  carried  on  in  more  complete  defiance  of  this 
and  other  theological  theories  hampering  trade,  than  in  the  very  city 
where  these  great  treatises  were  published.  The  sin  of  usury,  like  the 
sin  of  commerce  with  the  Mohammedans,  seems  to  have  been  settled 
for  by  the  Venetian  merchants  on  their  deathbeds;  and  greatly  to  the 
advantage  of  the  magnificent  churches  and  ecclesiastical  adornments 
of  the  city.  (White,  History  of  the  Warfare  of  Science  with  Theology  in 
Christendom,  Vol.  II.) 

“The  carrying-trade  with  the  East  was  at  first  in  the  hands  of  the 
Greeks,  but  after  the  triumph  of  tne  crescent,  it  gradually  fell  to  the 
Italians,  who  unlike  the  members  of  the  Eastern  Church,  had  no  con- 


EUROPE  FROM  FIFTH  TO  TENTH  CENTURY  151 


Like  all  commercial  cities  Venice  had,  at  this  time,  a 
continuously  revolving  population.  Wealth  was  not  held 
in  land  or  territorial  revenues,  but  was  gained  by  trade. 
Success  in  trade  was  open  to  all.  This  created  a  wealthy 
class  continuously  recruited  from  below,*  1  and  from  outside ; 
in  a  later  age,  when  conventual  retreats  were  the  prerogative 
of  aristocracy  and  wealth,  the  revolving  character  of  Vene¬ 
tian  society  brought  new  families  to  the  fore — families  who 
had  never  practiced  the  sterilization  of  pious  women. 

In  the  rise  of  Venice,  therefore,  these  things  are  noticeable : 
The  successful  merchants  were  not  religious.  There  were  no 
landed  estates  or  territorial  aristocracy  wherewith  to  endow 
religious  houses.  There  were  in  fact,  up  to  the  end  of  the 
ninth  century,  no  religious  houses. 2  There  was  a  continuous 
infusion  of  new  and  pagan  males.  It  is  probable  that  during 
this  period  there  was  a  continuous  numerical  superiority  of 
men  over  women  in  Venice,  and  that  neither  the  religious 
nor  social  sterilization  of  cold  women  could  or  did  take  place. 

scientious  scruples  against  trading  with  the  Moslem.  Of  this  most 
lucrative  trade  Venice  obtained  her  full  share,  and  even  derived  consider¬ 
able  revenue  from  selling  Christian  European  slaves  to  the  Infidel.’' 

“In  her  economy,  a  ducat  gained  was  always  a  ducat,  whether  it  was 
stamped  with  the  symbol  of  the  star  and  crescent,  or  with  the  effigy  of 
the  Pope,  whether  it  was  earned  by  selling  holy  relics  to  her  neighbors 
or  Christian  slaves  to  the  Turk.”  (McClellan,  The  Oligarchy  of  Venice , 
Chap.  II  and  Chap.  IV.) 

1  “Many  of  the  middle  class,  and  even  some  plebeians,  had  acquired 
large  fortunes  through  the  same  commercial  channels  that  had  enriched 
the  patricians.  The  members  of  this  new  aristocracy  of  wealth  were  in 
much  the  same  position  as  the  London  city  families  before  the  first  re¬ 
form  bill.  Their  wealth  was  as  great  as  that  of  the  ruling  class,  they 
possessed  as  much  or  as  little  education  as  their  betters  and  man  for 
man  they  were  undoubtedly  as  able  to  govern  the  country  effectively. 
Yet  because  they  lacked  the  tradition,  through  which  the  aristocracy  by 
a  polite  fiction  was  descended  from  that  of  Rome,  they  were  of  as  little 
moment  as  the  very  beggars  in  the  streets.”  ( Ibid .,  Chap.  III.) 

2  In  Smith  and  Cheatham’s  Dictionary  of  Christian  Antiquities  there 
are  enumerated  1481  religious  houses  founded  between  the  fourth  and 
the  ninth  centuries  inclusive.  The  list  does  not  show  a  single  convent 
or  monastery  at  Venice. 


152  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


After  the  accumulation  of  wealth,  convents  were  undoubt¬ 
edly  established,  and  some  daughters  of  the  aristocracy  took 
the  veil;  but  this  condition  did  not  arise  until  the  tenth 
century ;  it  impaired  only  the  families  of  wealth;  and  as  their 
possessions  were  commercial  and  not  territorial,  they  were 
easily  and  continuously  replaced  by  the  rise  of  new  com¬ 
mercial  magnates  from  the  class  below. 1 

It  is  evident  that,  in  all  respects,  these  conditions  differed 
from  those  of  Constantinople.  In  the  latter  city,  there  were 
ancient  and  richly  endowed  religious  houses ;  the  inhabitants 
were  fanatical  Christians;  the  sterilization  of  pious  women 
had  been  long  established,  and  continued  without  interrup¬ 
tion;  there  was  an  aristocracy  of  territorial  possessions,  and 
social  caste  was  fixed.  It  is  certain  that  these  differences 
between  the  two  cities  satisfactorily  account  for  the  syn¬ 
chronous  rise  of  Venice,  and  decline  of  Constantinople, 
although  both  alike  professed  the  Christian  religion. 

80.  In  Italy ,  the  ancient  Christian  population  was 
conquered  first  by  the  Visigoths  under  Alaric,  who  sacked 
Rome  in  410;  and  conquered  again  by  the  Gothic  tribes,  who 
created  Odoacer  “king  of  Italy”  (a  new  title)  in  476.  In 
493,  Theodoric  the  Great,  king  of  the  Ostrogoths,  having 
conquered  Italy,  murdered  Odoacer  and  set  up  the  Ostro- 
gothic  Empire.  Both  Visigoths  and  Ostrogoths  embraced 
Christianty.  Alaric  “gave  strict  orders  that  the  churches 
should  be  left  uninjured,  and  that  the  right  of  asylum  in  them 
be  respected .  And  these  orders  were  obeyed .  ’  ’  The  empire  of 
Theodoric  was  Christian.  It  included:  (a)  former  Roman 
Christians;  ( b )  the  Visigoths  and  other  Gothic  intruders 
since  410;  ( c )  the  Ostrogoths  brought  by  Theodoric.  He 

1  This  process  continued  until  the  fourteenth  century.  By  a  series  of 
laws  from  1299  to  1316,  there  was  accomplished  what  was  known  as 
“  Serrata  del  Gran  Consiglio  ’  ’  or  the  closing  of  the  Great  Council.  Thus 
was  created  the  class  of  “Pauper  Nobles”  who  governed  Venice.  The 
infusion  of  new  blood  was  stopped.  “The  history  of  Venice,  until  the 
beginning  of  the  fourteenth  century,  is  that  of  her  growth;  from  then 
until  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  it  is  that  of  her  decline.”  (McClellan, 
supra,  Chap.  VII.) 


EUROPE  FROM  FIFTH  TO  TENTH  CENTURY  153 


was  an  Arian  in  religion,  but  “he  ruled  with  even-handed 
justice,  protecting  the  Roman  population  from  destruction, 
endeavoring  to  treat  Goths  and  Romans  alike,  so  far  as  the 
circumstances  permitted,  and  doing  the  same  in  matters  of 
religion  as  regards  Arians  and  Catholics.”  (Gen.  Young, 
supra  Chap.  XX,  p.  165.) 

This  Christian  kingdom  of  mixed  Roman  and  Gothic 
population  fell  in  568,  when  Italy  was  invaded  by  the  Lom¬ 
bards.  Again,  Pagan  conquers  Christian;  and  the  new 
Pagans  were  the  first  to  give  a  permanent  name  (Lombardy) 
to  an  Italian  province. 

“The  Lombards  when  they  furnished  a  contingent  to 
accompany  Narses  into  Italy  in  551  had  been  Pagans;  but 
apparently  between  the  years  551-568  they  had  been  par¬ 
tially  converted  to  Arian  Christianity,  Alboin  himself  at  all 
events  being  nominally  an  Arian  Christian.  The  majority 
of  the  Lombards,  however,  appear  to  have  been  still  Pagans 
when  they  arrived  in  Italy,  being  in  the  habit  of  sacrificing, 
sometimes  a  she-goat,  and  sometimes  a  captive,  to  their 
ancient  gods.  In  any  case  such  Christianity  as  they  may 
have  imbibed  made  little  or  no  difference  in  their  general 
character,  which  is  described  as  ‘fiercer  than  even  the  ordin¬ 
ary  fierceness  of  barbarians. ’  ”  (Gen.  Young,  East  and  West 
Through  Fifteen  Centuries ,  Chap.  XXIII,  p.  327.) 

One  hundred  and  fifty-eight  years  had  passed  since  the 
first  Goths  took  Rome  under  Alaric ;  and  seventy-five  years 
since  the  establishment  of  the  Ostrogothic  kingdom  under 
Theodoric  the  Great.  In  from  two  to  five  generations,  the 
fighting  men  disappeared  from  the  Christianized  Goths. 1 

1  “  Then  occurred  a  singular  phenomenon — the  annihilation  and  dis¬ 
appearance  of  a  great  and  powerful  people  from  the  world’s  history. 
We  wonder  how  the  Etrurian  name  and  nation  were  absorbed  in  Rome. 
A  few  sepulchral  monuments,  a  few  vases  in  museums,  a  few  inscriptions 
which  perplex  the  scholar,  here  and  there  a  custom  or  tradition  which 
survives  in  the  story  of  an  alien  race, — this  is  all  that  remains  of  a  people 
once  the  most  polished,  and,  perhaps,  at  the  era  of  its  greatness,  the  most 
powerful  in  the  ancient  world.  The  same  phenomenon  is  repeated  at  the 
fall  of  the  great  Semitic  rival  of  Rome.  The  iron  hand  of  the  republic 
shattered  a  whole  civilization,  as  a  mirror  is  shattered  by  a  warrior’s 


154  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


The  advance  of  Alboin,  at  the  head  of  the  Lombards  met 
with  no  greater  opposition  than  the  advance  of  Alaric  at  the 
head  of  the  Goths,  one  hundred  and  sixty  years  earlier.  The 
Christians  submitted  to  the  new  Pagan  host.  The  character 
of  the  population  changed.  About  two  centuries  had  passed 
since  the  Italian  Christians  had  been  converted  to  the  doc¬ 
trine  and  practice  of  a  sterile  virginity.  In  that  time,  Italy 
had  been  three  times  overrun.  Now,  the  old  Christian  popu¬ 
lation  had  wholly  and  finally  disappeared.  “At  this  time,  ” 
says  Machiavelli,  “not  only  were  the  names  of  provinces 
changed,  but  also  of  lakes,  rivers,  seas,  and  men;  for  France, 
Spain,  and  Italy  are  full  of  fresh  names  wholly  different 
from  the  ancient.” 

At  the  period  of  their  Italian  conquest  the  Christianiza¬ 
tion  of  the  Lombards  had  just  begun.  Thereafter  they 
became  a  Christian  people;  and  accordingly  about  200  years 
later  they  were  unable  to  withstand  the  Frank.  In  774, 
Charlemagne  defeated  and  destroyed  the  Lombard  kingdom. 
For  the  fourth  time  in  four  centuries,  and  each  time  on  Italian 
soil,  a  great  Christian  nation  was  invaded  and  overrun.  And 
the  process  did  not  stop  even  then.  For  many  centuries, 
Italy,  Christian  since  the  fourth  century,  continued  to  be 
invaded  by  nations  which  were  Christianized  long  after¬ 
ward.  In  Roman  times,  when  maternity  was  impressed 
upon  her  cold  women,  the  tide  of  conquest  flowed  from  Italy 
northward,  across  the  Alps,  the  Danube  and  the  Rhine. 
When  Christians  reversed  the  selection  of  mothers,  they 
reversed  the  tide  of  conquest.  What  her  encircling  seas  can 
tell  of  Britain,  her  northern  mountains  can  tell  of  Italy. 

glove  of  steel.  The  language,  the  polity,  the  commercial  empire  of  Car¬ 
thage,  have  left  scarce  ‘a  wreck  behind.’  ‘The  periplus  of  Hanno,  a 
few  medals,  a  score  of  verses  in  Plautus,  and  there  is  all  that  remains  of 
the  Carthaginian  world.’  And  now  once  again  we  witness  the  same 
strange  catastrophe;  the  more  startling,  because  more  nearly  connected 
with  existing  politics  and  modem  times.  A  great  people,  which  had 
organized  an  enlightened  government,  and  sent  200,000  fighting  men 
into  the  field  of  battle,  is  annihilated  and  forgotten.”  (Sheppard,  Fall 
of  Rome,  p.  307,  Lecture  VI). 


EUROPE  FROM  FIFTH  TO  TENTH  CENTURY  155 

The  changing  course  of  victorious  armies  records  infallibly 
the  changing  selection  of  Italian  mothers. 

81.  For  about  three  centuries,  their  Christianization 
appeared  to  have  no  ill  effects  upon  the  Franks.  Clovis, 
who  conquered  all  of  Gaul  but  Burgundy,  and  founded  the 
modern  kingdom  of  “France,”  was  baptized,  together  with 
3000  of  his  knights,  in  the  Rheims  Cathedral,  on  Christmas 
Day,  496.  From  that  time  to  the  present  day,  there  has 
never  been  a  pagan  conquest  of  France.  But  again  the  ex¬ 
ception  is  only  apparent.  For  three  centuries,  Christianity 
sat  very  lightly  upon  the  Franks.  They  were  not  devout; 
they  were  disobedient ;  they  refused  to  keep  Lent ;  they  were 
not  monogamous. 


‘  ‘  Clovis  was  not  the  man  to  brook  the  serious  interference 
of  any  authority  with  his  own.  He  was  willing  to  become  a 
Christian  and  a  churchman,  but  upon  condition  of  being 
master  of  the  Church — in  somewhat  the  same  way  as  he  was 
master  of  his  people  and  kingdom.  He  assumed,  therefore, 
at  once  the  right  of  nomination  to  the  vacant  sees — how  far 
upon  the  grounds  of  Byzantine  precedent  it  is  impossible  to 
say, — and  his  successors  maintained  it.  The  Church  recalci¬ 
trated,  but  the  yoke  was  not  to  be  shaken  off.  The  Merov¬ 
ingians  insisted  upon  the  right,  and  exercised  it  as  they 
chose, — sometimes  in  favour  of  the  most  disreputable  priest 
or  most  unsuitable  layman.”  (Sheppard,  The  Fall  of  Rome , 
Lecture  XIII). 


From  Clovis,  in  the  sixth  century,  to  Charles  Martel,  in 
the  eighth  century,  the  Church  did  not  rule  the  Franks,  the 
Franks,  in  their  domain,  ruled  the  Church.  Pepin  of  Heris- 
tal  “according  to  the  custom  of  the  age,  had  married  a 
second  wife  during  the  life-time  of  his  first”;  and  from  this 
plural  union  sprang  Charles  Martel,  the  saviour  of  Christian 
Europe  from  the  Moslems.  He  not  only  ruled  but  plundered 
the  Church.  Michelet  supposes  him  to  have  been  a  pagan. 
It  is  certain  that  the  Church  itself  condemned  him  to  hell ; 
the  truth  of  which  could  be  affirmed  by  the  smell  of  fire  when 
his  tomb  was  opened.  (Gibbon,  supra,  Chap.  LII.) 


1 56  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


“The  Franks  did  not,  like  their  Burgundian  and  Visigoth 
neighbors,  throw  themselves  into  the  form  of  social  organiza¬ 
tion  which  they  found  in  the  lands  they  conquered,  nor 
adopt  civil,  military,  and  ecclesiastical  institutions,  in  which 
they,  and  the  people  of  the  country,  might  equally,  or  nearly 
equally  participate.  Like  the  Heracleids  and  other  con¬ 
quering  races,  they  remained  an  army  of  occupation  with 
imperial  functions,  among  a  subject  population.  But  for 
a  long  time  they  did  not  assume  the  sacerdotal  office.  The 
religious  element  of  the  national  authority  they  abandoned 
with  contempt,  perhaps  with  superstitious  reverence,  to  the 
more  instructed  class  from  whom  they  had  derived  their 
religion  itself.  While  the  Arian  clergy  of  the  Gothic  and 
Burgundian  nations  were  probably  Goths  and  Burgundians, 
the  Frankish  clergy  were  never  Franks,  except  when  the 
tonsure  was  inflicted  as  a  safeguard  or  a  punishment  upon 
some  rival  prince  or  rebellious  warrior.  It  is  plain  that  this 
circumstance  must  have  exercised  a  very  notable  influence 
upon  the  relations  of  the  Church  with  the  monarchy  and 
people  in  Merovingian  times, — and  facts,  otherwise  most 
difficult  of  explanation,  abundantly  confirm  the  ‘a  priori’ 
conclusion.”  (Sheppard,  Fall  of  Rome,  Lecture  VIII.) 

When  Charles  Martel,  at  the  Battle  of  Tours  in  732,  de¬ 
fended  Christian  Europe  against  the  invasion  of  the  Mos¬ 
lems,  it  is  plain  that  the  Franks  who  fought  under  him  were 
not  descendants  of  a  race  which  for  two  centuries  had  been 
sapped  by  the  continuous  sterilization  of  its  cold  women. 
They  were  Christian  in  name;  but  they  were  warriors  by 
choice;  and  they  left  the  doctrine  and  practice  of  Chris¬ 
tianity  to  the  conquered  inhabitants  of  Gaul. 

By  Charlemagne,  the  relations  between  the  Franks  and 
the  Church  were  reversed.  He  exalted  the  Church ;  and  the 
Frankish  devotion  to  the  Church  dates  from  his  reign. 

“The  objection  which  has  been  most  frequently  and  most 
vehemently  urged  against  the  policy  and  actions  of  Charle¬ 
magne,  is  the  undue  elevation  to  which  he  has  been  supposed 
to  have  exalted  the  Church.”  (Sheppard,  Fall  of  Rome, 
Lecture  IX.) 

“  The  arrogant  pretensions  asserted  by  the  clergy  after  the 
death  of  Charlemagne,  may,  in  some  measure,  be  attributed 


EUROPE  FROM  FIFTH  TO  TENTH  CENTURY  157 


to  the  exalted  functions  performed  by  them  during  his  life, 
and  the  despotism  of  the  bishops  in  the  temporal  affairs  of 
the  empire  has  not  unreasonably  been  traced  to  the  share  in 
the  civil  administration  which  he  encouraged  them  to  claim, 
and  permitted  them  to  exercise.”  (Ibidj 

Thus,  the  evidence  as  to  the  Franks  is  that  for  three  cen¬ 
turies  they  kept  themselves  apart  from  the  spiritual  dicta¬ 
tion  of  the  Church ;  during  the  period  from  Clovis  to  Charle¬ 
magne,  piety  did  not  sterilize  any  of  the  Franks,  for  none  of 
them  were  pious ;  and  during  this  period  they  continuously 
increased  in  martial  power.  In  the  last  of  the  three  centuries, 
under  Charles  Martel,  they  defeated  the  Moslem  host  at 
the  Battle  of  Tours,  and,  under  Charlemagne,  they  destroyed 
the  Lombard  kingdom,  and  extended  the  Frankish  domin¬ 
ions  in  Europe  to  an  extent  as  great  as  that  formerly  ruled 
by  Rome.  The  contrast  which  they  exhibit  to  those  other 
barbarian  races  which  devoutly  espoused  the  Christian 
religion  and  practice  of  the  age,  is  very  marked;  no  less 
marked,  however,  than  the  change  in  the  Franks  themselves 
after  they  became  religious.  From  the  reign  of  Charle¬ 
magne,  the  Franks  steadily  declined.  In  a  little  more  than 
a  century,  they  were  unable  to  beat  off  the  invading  Nor¬ 
mans  (pagans),  who  besieged  Paris,  and  seized  and  occupied 
a  fair  province,  still  called  Normandy.  From  Clovis  to 
the  Norman  invasion  France’s  history  runs  true  to  mathe¬ 
matical  law. 

82.  In  the  island  of  Britain ,  the  lethal  effect  of  Christian 
devotion  during  the  period  of  the  sterilization  of  the  pious 
is  shown  by  several  successive  groups. 

When  the  Roman  legions  were  withdrawn,  a.d.  41  i,  the 
province  of  Britain  was  populous,  wealthy,  civilized,  highly 
cultivated  and  Christian.  It  was  promptly  overrun  by  the 
savage  and  pagan  Piets  from  the  north.  Notwithstanding 
their  advantages  of  walls,  fortifications,  and  roads,  this 
numerous  Christian  population  were  quite  unable  to  defend 
the  province  against  the  Pictish  raids.  “  The  Piets  drive  us 


158  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


into  the  ocean,  and  the  ocean  drives  us  back  upon  the  Piets,” 
complained  the  venerable  Bede.  In  their  extremity,  it  is 
supposed  that  they  invited  the  invasion  of  the  Angles, 
Saxons,  and  Jutes,  pagans  from  the  main-land.  It  is  certain 
that  this  invasion  occurred,  and  that,  in  the  period  from  the 
middle  of  the  fifth  century,  to  the  middle  of  the  sixth,  these 
pagans  overran,  conquered,  and  occupied  the  whole  domain 
of  Roman  Britain.  Seven  new  kingdoms  were  set  up  by  the 
pagan  invaders ;  and  the  dates  of  the  Christian  conversion  of 
the  Saxon  heptarchy  are  given  by  General  Young  as  follows: 


a.d.  597 . 

“  631 . 

“  634 . 

“  635 . 

“  653 . 

“  677 . 

“  68l . 

. South  Saxons 

The  extinction  of  the  Roman  Christian  was  complete,  and 
the  Roman  province  of  Britain  gained  a  new  name,  Angle- 
ten  e  or  England.  General  Young  fixes  Sept.  24,  673,  as  the 
birthday  of  the  Church  of  England. 1  Within  a  century,  the 
newly  converted  English  had  become  zealous  Christians. 

“But  the  most  prominent  feature  at  this  time  is  the  zeal 
developed  by  the  recently  constituted  Church  of  England  in 
endeavoring  to  convert  various  Continental  races  who  were 
still  Pagans.  England,  which  had  itself  been  converted  to 
Christianity  less  than  eighty  years,  now  sent  forth  mission- 

1  Peter’s  Pence 

The  Brut  “  same  yer  ( 1 3^5)  hit was  ordeyned  that  seynt 

Early  Eng -  Petris  pens,  fro  that  tyme  forth  shold  not  be  payd,  the 
lish  Text  whiche  Kyng  Iva,  sum  tyme  King  of  Englond,  of  the  cuntre 
Society,  of  West-Saxons,  that  bygan  to  regne  in  the  yer  of  our  Lord 
iqo8  p.  31  DCLXXIX,  ferst  graunted  to  Rome,  for  the  scole  of  Eng- 
long  ther  to  be  continued.”  (G.  G.  Coulton,  Social  Life  in  Britain , 
Section  IV — 4.) 


EUROPE  FROM  FIFTH  TO  TENTH  CENTURY  159 


ary  after  missionary  from  the  training  colleges  which  had 
been  established  at  Lindisfarne,  Glastonbury,  and  Jarrow 
to  give  their  lives  in  brave  attempts  to  convert  the  most 
savage  and  barbarous  races  of  Germany.  From  Northum¬ 
bria  in  695  went  Willibrod,  who  for  forty  years  laboured  to 
convert  the  savage  Frisians,  and  at  length  was  killed  by 
them.  Two  priests,  both  named  Ewald,  about  the  same 
time  attempted  a  similar  task  in  Saxony,  and  were  torn  limb 
from  limb  at  Cologne,  and  their  bodies  thrown  into  the 
Rhine.  From  Wessex  in  716  went  Winfrith,  who  received 
from  Pope  Gregory  II  the  name  of  Boniface,  and  is  often 
called  ‘the  Apostle  of  Germany.’  ”  (Gen.  Young,  East  and 
West  Through  Fifteen  Centuries ,  Chap.  XXVI.) 

“A  constant  succession  of  royal  devotees  began,  kings 
and  queens  resigning  their  rank  to  enter  monasteries  and 
convents  often  founded  by  themselves,  or  to  make  pilgrim¬ 
ages  to  shrines  such  as  Glastonbury,  or  to  the  tombs  of 
specially  revered  martyrs  or  saints,  or  even  to  walk  bare¬ 
footed  on  pilgrimages  to  Rome,  as  the  place  where  so  many 
renowned  martyrs  had  suffered,  and  there  establishing  hos¬ 
pitals  for  the  reception  of  wornout  travellers  from  England, 
or  schools  for  the  education  of  English  children.  This  kind 
of  action  was  not  of  course  confined  to  England  at  this 
period;  but  it  certainly  appears  to  have  been  much  more 
largely  followed  in  that  country  than  elsewhere.  The  king¬ 
doms  of  Northumbria,  Essex,  East  Anglia,  Mercia,  Wessex, 
and  Kent  each  contributed  examples  of  kings  who  thus 
resigned  their  crowns  to  enter  monasteries,  similar  action 
being  taken  by  many  queens  and  noble  ladies  who  entered 
convents,  often  becoming  rulers  of  convents  which  they 
had  built  and  endowed.  Among  these  kings  Coinred,  king 
of  Mercia,  Ceadwalla,  king  of  Wessex  (Ina’s  predecessor), 
and  Offa,  prince  of  the  East  Saxons,  all  made  pilgrimages 
to  Rome.”  (Ibid.) 

Piety  and  zeal  were  promptly  followed  by  the  usual  result. 
In  the  ninth  century,  the  Christian  Saxons  were  invaded 
by  the  pagan  Danes,  who,  by  a.d.  878,  had  overrun,  con¬ 
quered,  and  settled  Northumbria,  East  Anglia,  and  Mercia. 
More  than  a  century  of  warfare  followed,  during  which  the 
pious  Saxons  never  completely  defeated  the  Danes;  and  in 
1013  all  England  was  conquered,  and  ruled  by  Cnut,  a 
Danish  king.  Meanwhile  the  Danes  had  been  converted. 


1 60  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


‘The  church  had  been  the  centre  of  national  resistance 
to  the  Dane,  but  Cnut  sought  above  all  its  friendship.  He 
paid  homage  to  the  cause  for  which  A£lfheah  had  died,  by 
his  translation  of  the  Archbishop’s  body  to  Canterbury. 
He  atoned  for  his  father’s  ravages  by  costly  gifts  to  the 
religious  houses.  He  protected  English  pilgrims  against  the 
robber-lords  of  the  Alps,  and  English  bishops  against  the 
exactions  of  the  Papacy.  His  love  for  the  monks  broke  out 
in  the  song  which  he  composed  as  he  listened  to  their  chaunt 
at  Ely:  ‘Merrily  sung  the  monks  of  Ely  when  Cnut  the 
King  rowed  by  ’  across  the  vast  fen-waters  that  surrounded 
their  abbey.  ‘Row,  boatmen,  near  the  land,  and  hear  we 
these  monks  sing.’ 

“Cnut’s  letter  from  Rome  to  his  English  subjects  marks 
the  grandeur  of  his  character,  and  the  noble  conception  he 
had  formed  of  kingship.  ‘I  have  vowed  to  God  to  lead  a 
right  life  in  all  things,’  wrote  the  King,  ‘to  rule  justly  and 
piously  my  realms  and  subjects,  and  to  administer  just 
judgment  to  all.  If  heretofore  I  have  done  ought  beyond 
what  was  just,  through  headiness  or  negligence  of  youth,  I 
am  ready,  with  God’s  help,  to  amend  it  utterly.’  ”  (Green, 
History  of  the  English  People ,  Chap.  II,  Sect,  i.) 

Saxons  and  Danes  were  ruled  alike,  and  piety  sapped  the 
strength  of  both.  The  last  of  the  English  kings  before  the 
defeat  of  Harold  was  Edward  “the  Confessor,”  1042-1066. 
This  king’s  piety  is  sufficiently  indicated  in  his  name;  the 
nation’s  piety  in  his  popularity. 

In  1066,  history  repeated  itself  again  when,  for  the  third 
time,  Christian  England  surrendered  to  invaders  of  a  pagan 
stock.  The  Normans  were  Christianized  even  later  than  the 
Danish  invaders  of  England. 

1  ’  , 

“William  Longs  word,  the  son  of  Rolf,  though  wavering 
towards  France  and  Christianity,  remained  Pagan  and  Dane 
in  heart ;  he  called  in  a  Danish  colony  to  occupy  his  conquest 
of  the  Cotentin,  the  peninsula  which  runs  out  from  St. 
Michael’s  Mount  to  the  cliffs  of  Cherbourg,  and  reared  his 
boy  among  the  Northmen  of  Bayeux  where  the  Danish 
tongue  and  fashions  most  stubbornly  held  their  own.  A 
heathen  reaction  followed  his  death,  and  the  bulk  of  the 
Normans,  with  the  child  Duke  Richard,  fell  away  for  the 


EUROPE  FROM  FIFTH  TO  TENTH  CENTURY  161 


time  from  Christianity,  while  new  pirate-fleets  came  swarm¬ 
ing  up  the  Seine.  To  the  close  of  the  century  the  whole 
people  are  still  ‘Pirates’  to  the  French  around  them, 
their  land  the  ‘Pirates’  land,’  their  Duke  the  ‘Pirates’ 
Duke.’”  (Green,  History  of  the  English  People ,  Chap.  II, 
Sect.  3.) 

Richard  the  Good,  grandfather  of  William  the  Conqueror, 
was  the  first  of  his  line  to  become  a  Christian.  The  Norman 
conquest  of  England  followed,  for  the  third  time  in  the  suc¬ 
cession  of  six  centuries,  exactly  the  course  indicated  by 
mathematical  law. 

The  test  may  be  applied  again  to  the  next  three  centuries, 
and  with  like  results.  In  the  eleventh  century,  an  English 
king  was  named  Edward  ‘‘the  Confessor,  ”  and  soon  England 
was  invaded  from  France.  In  the  thirteenth  century,  a 
French  king  was  called  “Saint”  Louis,  and  soon  France  was 
invaded  from  England.  The  Battle  of  Cressy  was  fought  in 
1346,  two  generations  after  St.  Louis’s  death.  On  the  French 
side,  were  a  brilliant  company  of  knights,  courtiers,  men  of 
arms,  all  born  in  a  group  which  for  about  three  centuries  had 
piously  accepted  and  practiced  the  Christian  doctrine  of 
sterile  virginity.  Opposed  to  them  were  the  English  bowmen, 
bom  to  a  group  which  had  lost  its  lands  and  religious  houses 
to  the  Normans.  Their  victory  was  complete.  “God  has 
punished  us  for  our  sins,  ”  cries  the  chronicler  of  St.  Denys,  in 
a  passion  of  bewildered  grief  as  he  tells  of  the  rout  of  the  great 
host  which  he  had  seen  mustering  beneath  his  abbey  walls. 
Nine  centuries  had  now  passed  since  the  pagan  Saxons  in¬ 
vaded  Christian  Britain;  and  four  times  in  this  period  the 
group  which  sterilized  its  cold  women  had  been  badly  beaten 
by  a  greatly  out-numbered  group  which  did  not. 

83.  England  was  not  again  invaded  by  pagans;  but  it  is 
interesting  to  observe  in  English  history  the  same  evidence 
that  like  results  follow  like  causes.  From  the  Norman 
conquest  to  the  end  of  the  thirteenth  century  the  English 
situation  was  this :  The  Normans  owned  all  the  land.  “The 
country  was  portioned  out  among  the  captains  of  the  in- 


VOL.  I — II 


1 62  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


vaders.”  Land  was  the  only  wealth;  and  Normans  the 
only  wealthy  men.  The  conquered  English  were  poor, 
oppressed,  hated  and  despised. 

“The  Conqueror  and  his  descendants  to  the  fourth  genera¬ 
tion  were  not  Englishmen:  most  of  them  were  born  in 
France :  they  spent  the  greater  part  of  their  lives  in  France : 
their  ordinary  speech  was  French:  almost  every  high  office 
in  their  gift  was  filled  by  a  Frenchman:  every  acquisition 
which  they  made  on  the  Continent  estranged  them  more 
and  more  from  the  population  of  our  island.  One  of  the 
ablest  among  them  indeed  attempted  to  win  the  hearts  of 
his  English  subjects  by  espousing  an  English  princess.  But 
by  many  of  his  barons,  this  marriage  was  regarded  as  a 
marriage  between  a  white  planter  and  a  quadroon  girl  would 
now  be  regarded  in  Virginia.  In  history  he  is  known  by  the 
honourable  surname  of  Beauclerc;  but,  in  his  own  time,  his 
own  countrymen  called  him  by  a  Saxon  nickname,  in  con¬ 
temptuous  allusion  to  his  Saxon  connection.” 

“A  cruel  penal  code,  cruelly  enforced,  guarded  the 
privileges,  and  even  the  sports,  of  the  alien  tyrants.” 

“In  no  country  has  the  enmity  of  race  been  carried 
farther  than  in  England.” 

“But  it  is  certain  that,  when  John  became  King,  the 
distinction  between  Saxon  and  Norman  was  strongly 
marked,  and  that  before  the  end  of  the  reign  of  his  grandson 
it  had  almost  disappeared.  In  the  time  of  Richard  the  First, 
the  ordinary  imprecation  of  a  Norman  gentleman  was, 
‘May  I  become  an  Englishman!’  His  ordinary  form  of 
indignant  denial  was  ‘ Do  you  take  me  for  an  Englishman?’ 
The  descendant  of  such  a  gentleman  a  hundred  years  later 
was  proud  of  the  English  name.”  (Macaulay’s  History  of 
England ,  Chap.  I.) 

The  Normans  rapidly  changed  to  zealous  Christians. 

“The  change  of  manners  was  accompanied  by  an  even 
sharper  change  of  faith,  a  change  which  bound  the  land 
where  heathendom  had  fought  most  stubbornly  for  life 
more  closely  than  other  lands  to  the  cause  of  Christianity 
and  the  Church.  The  Dukes  were  the  first  to  be  touched 
by  the  new  faith,  but  the  religious  movement  had  no  sooner 
spread  to  the  people  than  it  was  welcomed  with  an  almost 
passionate  fanaticism.  Every  road  was  crowded  with  pil- 


EUROPE  FROM  FIFTH  TO  TENTH  CENTURY  163 

grims.  Monasteries  rose  in  every  forest  glade.”  (Green, 
History  of  England,  Chap.  II,  Sect.  III.) 

In  Sir  Walter  Besant’s  London  the  names  of  the  founders 
of  many  great  religious  houses  are  given : 

Matilda,  wife  of  Henry  I — 1109.  Holy  Trinity. 

William  Basing,  Dean  of  St.  Paul’s,  in  the  reign  of 
Richard  I.  Nunnery  of  St.  Helen. 

Humphrey  Bohun,  Earl  of  Hereford — 1253.  Austin 
Friars. 

Edward  I,  and  his  Queen  Eleanor,  were  great  benefac¬ 
tors  to  the  Dominicans.  The  white  Friars  got  their 
house  in  London  from  Edward  I,  but  their  chief 
benefactor  was :  Hugh  Courtenay,  Earl  of  Devonshire. 

Sir  Walter  Manny  founded  in  1371  the  house  of  the 
Salutation  of  the  Mother  of  God. 

Jordan  Briset  a  Baron  of  the  Realm  and  Muriel  his 
wife  founded  the  priory  of  St.  John  of  Jerusalem  in 
the  year  1100.  They  had  already  founded  a  priory 
for  nuns. 

Simon  Fitz  Mary  founded  the  Hospital  St.  Mary  of 
Bethlehem  (Sheriff  in  1247.) 

Walter  Brune  and  Rosia  his  wife  founded  the  House  of 
St.  Mary  Spital  in  1197. 

Edmund,  Earl  of  Lancaster  founded  the  Abbey  of  St. 
Clare  in  1293. 

Edward  III  founded  Free  Chapel  of  the  Blessed  Virgin. 

Richard,  Prior  of  Bermondsey  founded  St.  Thomas’s 
Hospital  in  1213. 

Peter  de  Rupibus  Bishop  of  Winchester  founded  Canons 
Regular  1215. 

William  the  Conqueror  founded  a  Nunnery  at  Stratford- 
1  e-Bow;  later  augmented  by  Stephen,  enriched  by 
Henry  II  and  Richard  I. 

William  Marshall,  Earl  of  Pembroke  founded  House  of 
St.  Mary  Rounceval. 

9 

Every  one  of  these  religious  houses  was  founded  by  a 
Norman  for  Normans.  There  is  actual  proof  of  what  might 
have  been  presumed,  namely,  that  all  the  new  foundations 
of  religious  houses,  for  two  or  three  centuries  after  the  Nor¬ 
man  conquest,  were  made  by  Normans,  since  they  were  the 


1 64  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


only  inhabitants  of  the  realm  with  sufficient  property  to 
endow  a  religious  settlement.  There  is  a  presumption 
equally  strong  that  only  Normans  were  admitted  to  them. 
The  conquerors  felt  toward  the  English  as  white  Americans 
feel  toward  negroes;  they  applied  an  epithet  to  a  Norman 
king  because  of  his  marriage  to  a  Saxon  girl.  They  were  a 
rich,  powerful,  dominant  caste.  For  two  or  three  centuries, 
therefore,  the  English  were  excluded  from  religious  houses. 
For  them,  the  sterilization  of  the  pious  ceased.  During  the 
same  period,  all  these  great  religious  foundations  were  due 
to  Norman  piety,  and  filled  with  zealous  and  celibate 
N ormans .  W e  might  expect  therefore ,  a  continuous  decline 
of  the  Norman  stock,  and  a  corresponding  improvement  of 
the  English  stock.  The  evidence  shows  that  just  this 
occurred.  Norman  religious  zeal  and  Norman  religious 
foundations  were  in  full  swing  in  the  twelfth  century.1 
Three  centuries  later,  the  Norman  nobility  had  suffered  a 
marked  decline;  and  romantic  Norman  surnames  began  to 
be  displaced  by  Saxon  Smiths’  sons  and  Howards. 2 

1  “If  it  had  not  been  for  these  drawbacks,  the  clergy  must,  one  would 
imagine,  have  almost  acquired  the  exclusive  property  of  the  soil.  They 
did  enjoy,  according  to  some  authorities,  nearly  one  half  of  England,  and, 
I  believe,  a  greater  proportion  in  some  countries  of  Europe.  They  had 
reached,  perhaps,  their  zenith  in  respect  of  territorial  property  about  the 
conclusion  of  the  twelfth  century.”  (Hallam,  Middle  Ages,  Chap.  VII, 
Part  I). 

In  England  all  this  land  must  have  been  given  to  the  Church  by  the 
Normans.  It  was  theirs. 

3  It  is  interesting  to  observe  the  same  change  in  the  relative  position 
of  Normans  and  English  that  occurred  from  a  similar  cause  about  four¬ 
teen  centuries  earlier  between  the  Roman  patricians  and  plebeians. 
Cold  women  avoided  repugnant  maternity  in  the  aristocracy  of  Rome 
from  motives  of  pleasure,  among  the  Normans  from  motives  of  religion. 
In  both  aristocracies  the  result  was  the  same. 

In  the  eleventh  century  the  Normans,  says  William  of  Malmesbury, 
“revived  by  their  arrival  the  observances  of  religion  which  were  every¬ 
where  grown  lifeless  in  England.  You  might  see  churches  rise  in  their 
villages,  and  monasteries  in  the  towns  and  cities,  built  after  a  style 
unknown  before;  you  might  behold  the  country  flourishing  with  re¬ 
novated  rites,  so  that  each  wealthy  man  counted  that  day  lost  to  him 


EUROPE  FROM  FIFTH  TO  TENTH  CENTURY  165 


The  decline  of  religion  among  the  Norman  conquerors, 
following  the  religious  sterilization  of  women,  occupied 
about  the  same  time  as  the  similar  decline  from  the  same 
cause  among  the  Anglo-Saxons.  From  the  eighth  century, 
when  religious  devotion  among  the  Anglo-Saxons  was  high, 
to  the  eleventh  when  William  of  Malmesbury  said  that  it 
was  everywhere  “life-less  in  England,”  is  three  centuries. 
From  the  eleventh,  when  it  was  at  its  height  among  the 
Normans,  to  the  fourteenth  when  their  vices  scandalized 
their  tenants  and  serfs,  is  three  centuries. 

84.  “Saxon,  and  Norman,  and  Dane  are  we,”  sang 
Tennyson  in  “A  Welcome  to  Alexandra .”  Not  one  of  these 
racial  stocks  was  Christian  in  the  fourth  century  when  the 
doctrine  of  the  sterilization  of  the  pious  was  first  preached, 
and  first  adopted.1  The  Danes  and  Normans  were  not 

which  he  had  neglected  to  signalize  by  some  magnificent  action" 
Between  the  eleventh  and  the  fourteenth  century  the  Normans 
gave  nearly  half  their  land  to  the  Church.  (Hallam,  Middle  Ages, 
Chap.  VII).  In  the  fourteenth  century  after  the  religious  sterilization 
of  cold  and  pious  women  had  been  practiced  for  several  generations  by 
the  Norman  upper  classes  and  had  for  the  same  length  of  time  been 
forbidden  to  the  English  lowest  classes,  their  position  with  respect  to 
religion  was  reversed.  The  Normans  were  irreligious,  and  unchaste. 
The  English,  in  the  meantime,  had  become  religious  and  chaste.  Green 
quotes  the  following  from  a  canon  of  the  fourteenth  century : 

“  ‘  In  those  days,’  says  a  canon  of  the  time,  ‘arose  a  great  rumour  and 
clamour  among  the  people,  that  wherever  there  was  a  tournament  there 
came  a  great  concourse  of  ladies  of  the  most  costly  and  beautiful,  but 
not  of  the  best  in  the  kingdom,  sometimes  forty  or  fifty  in  number,  as 
if  they  were  a  part  of  the  tournament,  in  diverse  and  wonderful  male 
apparell,  in  parti-coloured  tunics,  with  short  caps  and  bands  wound 
cord-wise  round  their  head,  and  girdles  bound  with  gold  and  silver,  and 
daggers  in  pouches  across  their  body,  and  then  they  proceeded  on  chosen 
coursers  to  the  place  of  tourney,  and  so  expended  and  wasted  their 
goods  and  vexed  their  bodies  with  scurilous  wantonness  that  the  rumour 
of  the  people  sounded  every  where;  and  thus  they  neither  feared  God 
nor  blushed  at  the  chaste  voice  of  the  people.’  They  were  not  called  on 
to  blush  at  the  chaste  voice  of  the  Church.”  (Greene,  Short  History  of 
the  English  People ,  Chap.  V,  Sec.  3.) 

1  ‘‘What  strikes  us  at  once  in  the  new  England  is,  that  it  was  the  one 
purely  German  nation  that  rose  upon  the  wreck  of  Rome.  The  new 


1 66  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


Christianized  till  the  end  of  the  tenth  century.  The  Saxons 
had  been  Christianized  in  the  seventh  century ;  but  for  three 
centuries  after  the  Norman  conquest,  they  were  excluded 
from  religious  houses.  During  this  period,  Saxon  marriage 
was  monogamous;  and  followed  the  marriage  customs  of 
rising  civilization  in  pagan  Rome.  The  English  who  fought 
at  Cressy,  therefore,  had  suffered  the  adverse  selection  of 
motherhood  for  a  shorter  time  than  any  other  Christians  in 
Europe;  and  had  improved  their  racial  qualities  by  three 
centuries  of  selection  as  favorable  as  in  ancient  Rome. 

The  augmentation  of  the  English  spirit  in  the  fourteenth 
century  is  a  sight  to  behold.  Three  centuries  earlier  they 
had  been  the  beaten,  despised  serfs  of  the  Normans.  Now, 
they  limit  the  power  of  the  crown;  displace  the  Norman 
baronage ;  beat  the  chivalry  of  France ;  resent  the  dictation 


England  was  a  heathen  country.  The  religion  of  Woden  and  Thunder 
triumphed  over  the  religion  of  Christ.  Alone  among  the  German  assail¬ 
ants  of  Rome,  the  English  rejected  the  faith  of  the  Empire  they  helped 
to  overthrow.”  (Green,  supra,  Chap.  I,  Sec.  II.) 

There  is  a  striking  similarity  between  the  Norman  invasion  and  settle¬ 
ment  of  Normandy,  and  the  Moslem  invasion  and  settlement  in  Spain. 
In  each  case,  the  invaded  land  contained  an  older  civilization  and  a 
Christian  people  whose  cold  and  pious  women  were  perennially  sterilized 
by  the  Christian  doctrine  of  sterile  virginity;  they  were  invaded  by 
thousands  of  lusty  men  who  took  them  as  wives  and  compelled  them  to 
be  mothers.  There  was  a  sharp  change  from  adverse  to  favorable  selec¬ 
tion,  and  in  each  case  a  swift  improvement  in  posterity.  The  Moslems 
had  a  brilliant  civilization  in  Cordova  only  one  hundred  years  after  their 
invasion.  The  Norman  improvement  from  Rolf  the  Pirate  Dane  (d.  927) 
to  Robert  the  Magnificent,  who  begins  his  reign  in  1028,  was  nearly  as 
swift.  In  the  tenth  century  they  appeared  as  pirates,  and  in  the  eleventh 
they  were  reigning  in  England,  Southern  Italy,  and  Sicily,  and  were 
celebrated  for  the  magnificence  of  their  courts.  One  wonders  whether 
the  pagan  Norman  invaders,  were  at  first  strictly  monogamous  in  France. 
If  there  were  no  further  infusion  of  the  blood  of  French  mothers  after 
the  first  pirates  took  their  first  wives,  the  Norman  invaders  of  England 
and  Sicily  were  half  Dane  and  half  French.  If  French  wives  were  taken 
by  new  emigrants  or  new  generations  of  Normans,  the  continued  infusion 
of  French  blood  would  have  reduced  the  proportion  of  Norman  blood, 
at  the  time  of  the  English  and  Sicilian  conquests,  to  something  between 


EUROPE  FROM  FIFTH  TO  TENTH  CENTURY  167 

of  the  Pope;  stop  the  payment  of  Peter’s  pence;  levy  taxes 
on  the  Church  lands  and  religious  houses ;  get  a  charter  and 
Parliament ;  give  birth  to  Chaucer,  Longland,  Wyclif,  and  the 
Lollards ;  and  witness  a  peasant  revolt.  These  are  the  fruits 
of  three  centuries,  during  which  Norman  power,  wealth 
and  pride  forbade  religious  sterilization  of  English  women. 

85.  Interesting  corroborative  evidence  of  Christianity’s 
debasing  effect  upon  posterity  during  the  period  of  the 
Christian  doctrine  and  practice  of  a  sterile  virginity,  is  to 
be  found  in  many  instances  after  the  tenth  century.  For 
five  hundred  years  more,  it  is  still  noticeable  that  national 
genius  and  power  rise  higher  immediately  after  a  heathen 
inundation  (and  rise  more  rapidly  near  the  borders  of  the 
conquered  country)  than  under  long  and  uninterrupted 
Christian  rule.  Two  instances  of  this  have  already  been 
noticed — the  continuous  intellectual  and  spiritual  decay  of 


one-fourth  and  one-sixteenth.  I  have  computed  that  the  Moslems  who 
created  the  brilliant  civilization  of  Cordova  were  probably  one-sixteenth 
Arab,  and  fifteen- sixteenths  white  European  blood. 

The  noticeable  differences  between  the  Moslem  invasion  of  Spain  and 
the  Norman  invasion  of  France  are  that,  in  the  first,  the  invaders  re¬ 
tained  their  religion  and  language;  in  the  second,  they  lost  both.  Both 
the  Moslem  religion  and  the  Arabic  language  were  preserved  by  the  in¬ 
vaders  of  Spain  through  their  fanatical  devotion  to  the  Koran.  Insis¬ 
tence  that  ail  children  should  read  that  book  necessarily  made  Arabic 
the  universal  tongue.  To  Normans  bom  of  French  women,  French 
was  the  mother  tongue;  French  and  Latin,  the  languages  in  which 
sermons  were  preached  and  hymns  sung. 

A  very  interesting  parallel  to  the  rapid  affrenchion  of  the  Normans 
may  now  be  found  in  lower  Canada.  In  the  province  of  Quebec,  the 
traveller  will  find  tiny  villages  where  nothing  but  French  is  spoken,  and 
over  the  door  of  the  village  shop  an  old  Scotch  name — Crawford,  Fergu¬ 
son,  McGregor,  or  McPherson.  The  shop-keeper  is  French  and  speaks 
nothing  but  French.  Upon  inquiry,  one  will  be  told  that  after  the  con¬ 
quest  of  Quebec,  by  Wolfe,  in  1756,  some  companies  of  Scotch  troops 
were  disbanded.  The  men  married  the  French  inhabitants  of  the 
province ;  paternal  lineage  preserved  the  Scotch  sur-names ;  but  those  who 
bear  it  today,  have  in  their  veins  about  the  same  proportion  of  Scotch 
blood  as,  I  suppose,  the  civilized  Moslems  of  Cordova  had  of  Arab  blood, 
or  the  Norman  invaders  of  England  and  Sicily  had  of  Danish  blood. 


168  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


Constantinople  under  uninterrupted  orthodox  Christianity, 
and  the  rise  of  Sicily  under  Moslem  and  Norman  rule.  Later 
examples  are  found  in  Spain,  which  steadily  increased  in 
national  vigor  as  long  as  the  Christians  of  Castile  and  Ara¬ 
gon  suffered  perennial  raids  from  the  hostile  Moslems  of  the 
south.  The  decline  of  Spain  began  after  the  exclusion  of 
the  Moslems  and  the  Jews  had  made  the  land  wholly  Chris¬ 
tian,  ruled  by  Christian  prelates.  In  Languedoc,  a  refined 
civilization  followed  the  Moslem  occupation  of  southern 
France.  The  Albigenses  were  near  Christian  neighbors  of 
the  Spanish  Moslems.  In  the  east  of  Europe,  Slav  genius 
reached  its  highest  point  after  the  long  Tartar  inundation. 
Following  it,  and  near  its  borders,  Poland  rose  to  a  power 
from  which  it  declined  in  the  following  centuries  of  un¬ 
interrupted  Christian  rule.  Also  near  its  borders  appeared 
the  spiritual  quickening  of  the  Czechs.  John  Huss  and 
Copernicus  were  each  born  after  and  near  the  Tartar  flood. 
Professor  Mavor  finds  the  true  origin  of  serfdom  or  “land- 
bondage”  in  Russia  to  be  due  to  an  increasing  deterioration 
of  the  peasantry  after  the  subsidence  of  the  Tartars.  ( Eco¬ 
nomic  History  of  Russia.) 

86.  The  reader  has  doubtless  noticed  that  the  Christian 
doctrine  of  a  sterile  virginity  in  these  centuries  has  been 
called  the  “sterilization  of  the  pious,”  “sterilization  of 
cold  women,”  or  “sterilization  of  cold  and  pious  women,” 
and  has  perhaps  passed  on  these  terms  a  mental  criticism, 
that  they  show  confusion  of  thought  as  between  pious 
women  and  cold  women ;  and  that  they  ascribe  to  its  effect 
upon  one  sex  the  results  of  a  monasticism  which  in  fact 
applied  to  both  sexes.  The  correct  explanation  of  the  first 
is  as  follows : 

In  a  group  of  women  of  equal  piety  the  religious  teaching 
of  sterile  virginity  will  tend  to  sterilize  that  portion  of  the 
group  sexually  more  frigid. 

In  a  group  of  women  of  equal  sexual  ardor,  the  same 
religious  teaching  will  tend  to  sterilize  those  women  who  are 
the  more  pious. 


EUROPE  FROM  FIFTH  TO  TENTH  CENTURY  169 


In  neither  case  is  the  entire  group  sterilized;  confronted 
with  a  voluntary  choice  between  maternity  and  religious 
sterility,  some  women  of  each  group  always  chose  the  former. 
Otherwise  there  would  have  been  no  posterity  at  all.  In¬ 
dividual  motives  for  such  choice  can  never  be  ascertained. 
The  results  in  a  group,  however,  can  be  declared  with 
mathematical  certainty.  As  long  as  women  exercised  their 
voluntary  choice,  posterity  descended  from  the  women 
who  were  least  cold,  or  least  pious.  It  is  mathematically 
correct,  therefore,  to  describe  the  result  of  this  choice  as  the 
“sterilization  of  the  pious,”  or  the  “sterilization  of  cold 
women,  ”  or  the  “sterilization  of  pious  and  cold  women.” 

87.  The  doctrine  of  virginity  was  preached  to  men  as 
well  as  women ;  and  monastic  institutions  contained  perhaps 
as  many  of  the  former  as  of  the  latter;  while  the  priestly 
function,  exercised  by  men  alone,  was  confined  to  celibates. 
There  is,  however,  evidence  that  the  monastic  sterilization 
of  men  did  not  affect  posterity  either  adversely  or  other¬ 
wise. 

Organized  warfare  is  a  great  sterilizer  of  fighting  men  on 
sea  and  land.  The  perennial  warfare  of  an  expanding 
nation,  steadily  enlarging  its  boundaries,  continuously 
carries  its  soldiers  and  sailors  farther  and  farther  from  their 
homes.  More  and  more  of  them  spend  the  entire  period  of 
greatest  bodily  activity  and  sexual  power  in  camps  and  ships, 
unmarried  and  without  becoming  fathers.  Increasing 
numbers  of  them  die  in  that  condition.  The  sterilization  of 
soldiers  and  sailors  is  confined  to  men  alone ;  and  if  the  fight¬ 
ing  qualities  of  posterity  were  adversely  affected  by  the 
sterilization  of  fighting  men,  such  an  expanding  nation  as 
Rome  would  soon  suffer  from  their  subtraction.  After  some 
generations  no  new  fighting  men  would  be  born.  It  is  ap¬ 
parent,  however,  that  this  did  not  take  place.  From  the 
age  of  Numa,  Rome  fought  continuously  and  incessantly 
for  every  addition  of  territory.  She  fought  from  one  end  of 
Italy  to  another,  thence  into  Sicily,  Spain,  Gaul,  Africa, 
Macedonia,  Asia,  and  Egypt.  During  a  period  of  seven 


170  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 

centuries,  enormous  numbers  of  fighting  men  were  sterilized 
in  each  generation.  Repeated  military  disasters  wiped  out 
entire  Roman  forces.  Yet,  it  is  impossible  in  this  period  to 
observe  any  deterioration  in  the  fighting  qualities  of  the 
Roman  common  soldier — on  the  contrary  they  improved. 
The  soldiers  that  followed  Lucullus  into  Asia,  or  Caesar  into 
Gaul  in  the  first  century  B.c.  were  better  fighting  men  than 
their  ancestors  had  been  five  centuries  earlier.  As  long  as 
Rome  continued  the  compulsory  maternity  of  its  cold 
women,  the  annual,  biennial,  or  triennial  decimation  of  its 
legions  did  not  in  any  degree  impair  the  fighting  qualities  of 
posterity.  Losses  of  men  at  war  were  more  than  made  good 
by  the  Roman  women.  The  race  steadily  improved,  until 
the  selection  of  its  mothers  changed. 

On  this  evidence,  therefore,  the  effect  of  the  religious 
sterilization  of  men  and  women  may  be  accurately  stated. 
The  religious  sterilization  of  men  did  not  impair  the  spiritual 
qualities  of  posterity.  As  long  as  the  uncelibate  men  im¬ 
pressed  maternity  upon  cold  and  pious  women  the  losses 
due  to  masculine  celibacy  were  more  than  made  good,  and 
the  race  improved.  It  was  the  adverse  selection  of  mothers 
— the  religious  sterilization  of  women ,  not  of  men,  that  de¬ 
based  posterity. 

88.  The  whole  period  of  more  than  two  thousand  years 
from  Numa’s  reign  in  Rome  to  the  capture  of  Constantinople 
by  the  Turks,  may  be  separated  into  two  large  divisions. 
The  first  division,  ending  with  the  reign  of  Emperor  Trajan, 
was  a  period  of  expansion.  From  a  tiny  village  Rome 
became  mistress  of  the  civilized  world.  During  all  this 
period  the  boundaries  of  Roman  dominion  were  continu¬ 
ously  enlarging,  and  each  generation  of  Roman  soldiers 
fought  farther  and  farther  from  Rome.  The  second  period, 
beginning  with  the  reign  of  Hadrian  and  continuing  to  the 
fall  of  Constantinople,  was  the  period  of  contracting  empire. 
Sometimes  its  boundaries  were  maintained;  sometimes  a 
province  or  city  was  lost;  sometimes  one  half  the  Roman 
dominions  were  lost  in  a  generation.  Allowing  for  these 


EUROPE  FROM  FIFTH  TO  TENTH  CENTURY  171 


oscillations,  it  is  generally  true  that  from  Hadrian  onward 
the  empire  never  expanded,  but  continuously  contracted, 
and  that  finally  its  last  vestiges  were  limited  to  the  city  and 
suburbs  of  Constantinople.  During  this  period,  accord¬ 
ingly,  Roman  soldiers  of  each  successive  generation,  were 
fighting  nearer  their  homes ;  and  at  its  end  their  battle  front 
covered  a  land  area  hardly  larger  than  Rome  had  con¬ 
quered  five  hundred  years  B.c. 

Now,  if  the  sterilization  of  fighting  men  impaired  a 
nation’s  military  power,  Rome  should  have  grown  con¬ 
tinuously  weaker  during  the  first  of  these  periods,  and 
continuously  stronger  during  the  second.  She  should  have 
been  weaker  in  the  third  Punic  War  than  in  the  first ;  weaker 
when  Caesar  conquered  Gaul  than  when  the  Gauls  sacked 
Rome;  and  weaker  when  Trajan  invaded  and  annexed  the 
province  of  Dacia  than  when  Caesar  conquered  Gaul.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  contraction  of  her  battle  lines  during 
the  second  period  should  have  continuously  added  to  her 
strength.  The  drain  of  fighting  men  was  less  after  the  with¬ 
drawal  of  the  Roman  legions  from  Britain,  Spain,  Gaul, 
and  Africa;  and  finally,  when  Constantinople  held  a  ter¬ 
ritory  so  small  that  her  soldiers  could  return  to  their  homes 
regularly  upon  relief,  new  Rome  should  have  enjoyed  all  the 
advantages  of  old  Rome,  and  have  witnessed  in  each  rising 
generation  a  like  accession  of  martial  spirit. 

Simply  stating  the  proposition  reveals  its  absurdity.  The 
historical  truth  is  that  the  continuous  sterilization  of  her 
fighting  men  did  not  weaken  expanding  Rome;  nor  did  the 
surrender  of  distant  frontiers  and  the  concentration  of  their 
legions  at  home  strengthen  declining  Constantinople.  The 
difference  between  the  Italian  village  which  conquered  the 
Mediterranean  world  and  the  imperial  city  which  fell  a 
victim  to  the  Ottoman  Turks,  was  the  result  of  the  differ¬ 
ence  in  the  selection  of  mothers.  Not  the  sterilization  of 
fighting  men,  but  the  sterilization  of  cold  women,  accounts 
for  the  impairment  of  posterity. 


CHAPTER  X 


MODERN  CIVILIZATION.  TENTH  TO  THE  SIXTEENTH  CENTURY 

89.  The  twelve  centuries,  from  the  fourth  to  the  six¬ 
teenth  of  the  Christian  era,  embrace  the  entire  period  of 
mediaeval  history;  together  with  an  additional  century 
before  and  after  the  usual  reckoning  of  a  thousand  years 
for  the  Middle  Ages.  The  period  begins  with  the  enthusias¬ 
tic  approval  and  adoption  by  the  Christians  of  the  religious 
sterilization  of  cold  and  pious  women.  In  the  first  six  cen¬ 
turies  of  this  period  there  is  exhibited : 

I.  The  decline  of  Christian  valor  and  the  extinction  of 
peoples  who  were  Christianized  during  the  fourth  century. 

II.  The  surrender  of  vast  Christian  territories  to  the 
Moslems,  and  the  conquest  of  other  Christian  lands  by  non- 
Christian  nations. 

III.  The  decline  of  Christian  intellect;  superstition  dis¬ 
places  reason,  ignorance  succeeds  learning,  and  Christians 
are  no  longer  able  to  worship  an  invisible  God,  but  introduce 
the  worship  of  images,  shrines,  and  relics. 

IV.  Sexual  purity,  and  the  severity  of  monogamous  mar¬ 
riage,  practiced  for  three  centuries  by  the  early  Christians, 
are  abandoned;  sexual  laxity,  incontinence,  and  concubinage 
are  found  throughout  Christendom,  and  in  the  Church. 

V.  The  fall  of  civilization  and  of  its  memories,  traditions, 
letters,  and  wealth;  these  are  succeeded  by  barbarism,  its 
laws,  customs,  and  poverty. 

At  the  end  of  six  more  centuries  (twelve  centuries  after 
the  Christian  decline  begins),  Christendom  exhibits  in  the 
sixteenth  century : 

1.  A  revival  of  Christian  valor;  instead  of  the  sur- 

172 


MODERN  CIVILIZATION 


173 


render  of  Christian  territory,  vast  accretions  are  made  to 
Christendom  throughout  the  globe. 

2.  A  rise  of  Christian  intellect;  skepticism,  inquiry, 
knowledge,  and  reason  begin  to  displace  authority,  credulity, 
ignorance,  and  superstition.  Intellectual  freedom  fights 
servility.  A  large  body  of  Christians  revive  the  worship  of 
an  invisible  God,  and  abhor  images. 

3.  Indissoluble  monogamous  marriage  is  firmly  estab¬ 
lished  and  is  authoritatively  claimed  as  a  sacrament  of  the 
Christian  Church;  the  Church  joins  the  temporal  power  to 
extinguish  concubinage  (See  the  concordat  of  1516  between 
Francis  I  and  Pope  Leo  X). 

4.  The  rise  of  a  new  civilization,  not  out  of  the  peoples 
that  had  once  possessed  the  old,  but  out  of  barbarians,  Chris¬ 
tianized  since  the  fourth  century. 

It  is  plain  that  the  decline  which  began  in  the  fourth 
century  continued  as  long  as  the  tenth;  for,  as  late  as  the 
tenth  century,  Christian  countries  were  still  invaded  and 
conquered  by  non-Christian  barbarians.  In  the  west  of 
Europe,  the  last  of  these  incursions  occurred  in  the  tenth  and 
eleventh  centuries.  In  the  east  of  Europe,  the  same  spec¬ 
tacle  was  presented  as  late  as  the  fifteenth  century,  when 
Constantinople  surrendered  to  the  Turks.  It  is  clear  that 
in  Western  Europe,  the  decline  of  posterity  continued  in 
Christendom  until  about  the  year  one  thousand ;  that  about 
that  date  (i.e.,  in  the  tenth  and  eleventh  centuries)  decline 
ended  and  improvement  began;  and  that,  at  this  time  ac¬ 
cordingly,  new  factors  in  the  selection  of  posterity  should 
have  come  into  operation. 

In  Eastern  Europe,  it  is  equally  plain  that  the  decline  of 
Christian  posterity  continued  uninterruptedly  up  to  the 
fall  of  Constantinople  in  the  fifteenth  century.  In  Eastern 
Europe,  the  history  of  Christendom  shows  no  reversal;  no 
new  factors  in  the  selection  of  posterity  appeared;  and  the 
five  centuries,  from  the  tenth  to  the  fifteenth,  which  marked 
a  considerable  rise  in  the  newly  Christianized  peoples  of 
Western  Europe,  showed  no  improvement  in  the  ancient 


174  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


Christian  lands  by  the  Bosphorus.  Hence,  a  double  guide 
in  the  search  for  these  new  factors. 

Chronologically,  they  must  be  factors  arising  in  and  after 
the  tenth  century.  Geographically  they  must  be  factors 
operating  in  Western  Europe  on  the  newly  Christianized 
barbarians ;  not  operating  in  Eastern  Europe  or  the  realms 
ruled  from  Constantinople.  Each  of  the  factors  now  to  be 
considered  fulfills  these  conditions. 

i.  The  Morning  Gift.  2.  The  Virgin  Mother.  3. 
‘  ‘  Holy  ’ ’  Matrimony. 

90.  The  Morning  Gift . — This  was  a  gift  made  by  the 
husband  to  the  wife  on  the  morning  after  the  consummation 
of  the  marriage.  It  might  be  made  if  he  had  married  a 
widow ;  but  a  peculiar  and  special  obligation  rested  upon  the 
husband  if  he  had  married  a  virgin;  and  the  morning  gift 
was  a  present  received  by  the  wife  for  her  virginity.  The 
morning  gift  was  not  of  Latin  or  Roman  origin ;  it  was  un¬ 
known  to  the  Christian  Church ;  it  is  never  heard  of  in  the 
ecclesiastical  writings  of  the  early  Church,  in  the  lay  or 
clerical  histories  or  annals  of  the  Roman  empire,  or  of  the 
Christian  provinces  of  that  empire  before  the  barbaric  in¬ 
vasion;  and  it  is  unheard  of  among  the  ancient  Christian 
peoples  of  Constantinople.  The  references  to  it  turned  up 
in  the  New  English  Dictionary  (under  the  ancient  Teutonic 
form  of  moryeve)  run  from  circa  974  to  1597.  Every  one  of 
these  references  is  in  old  English  or  German  text.  Freeman 
relates  that  in  the  year  1 100, 

“when  an  English  Eadgyth  married  a  Norman  King,  she 
had  to  change  herself  into  a  Norman  Matilda.  And  it  is 
well  to  mark  that  the  royal  bride,  like  other  Teutonic  brides, 
had  her  morning  gift,  a  gift  which  took  the  form  of  cities 
and  governments,  and  a  gift  which  brought  no  good  to  Eng¬ 
land.”  (Freeman,  Norman  Conquest  of  England,  Vol.  I, 
Chap.  V,  p.  306.) 

In  this  custom,  may  be  found  the  first  effective  opposition 
to  the  religious  sterilization  of  chastity.  In  Eastern  Europe, 
both  before  and  after,  and  in  Western  Europe  before,  the 


MODERN  CIVILIZATION 


175 


tenth  century,  the  Church  taught  that  virginity  was  pious, 
holy  and  barren.  Virgins  were  the  cloistered  brides  of 
Christ,  and  buried  their  virtues  in  their  graves.  In  Western 
Europe,  for  the  first  time  in  six  centuries,  the  chaste  and 
pious  virgin  was  now  regularly,  and  by  approved  barbarian 
custom,  dedicated  to  marriage  and  fruitfulness.  Her  chas¬ 
tity  received  public  acknowledgment  and  a  special  gift,  and 
was  by  marriage  devoted  to  the  will  of  a  husband  who  would 
make  her  fruitful,  so  that  in  Western  Europe  from  the  tenth 
century  onward,  piety  and  chastity  were  no  longer  wholly 
subtracted  from  posterity.  Princes  and  nobles  set  the 
example.  By  rewarding  virginity  dedicated  to  fruitfulness, 
they  added  to  posterity  the  virtues  of  obedient  virgin  brides. 

91.  The  Virgin  Mother . — In  early  Christian  art,  the 
maternal  aspects  of  the  Blessed  Virgin  were  little  expressed 
and  never  emphasized.  She  was  usually  a  figure  in  a  his¬ 
torical  group;  the  most  frequent  examples  of  which  depict 
the  Adoration  of  the  Magi.  She  is  pictured,  likewise,  with 
St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul,  sometimes  with  the  Christ  Child, 
but  more  usually  without.  The  most  numerous  of  the 
female  figures  found  in  the  catacombs  at  Rome,  far  out¬ 
numbering  all  others,  is  the  Orante ,  a  single  female  figure 
standing  with  arms  outstretched  in  an  attitude  of  prayer. 
The  name  “  Maria”  sometimes  makes  certain  the  ascription 
of  this  figure  to  the  Virgin.  In  the  absence  of  any  name  the 
Orante  may  sometimes  be  the  Virgin,  sometimes  St.  Agnes, 
or  some  other  female  Saint  or  martyr.  After  the  persecu¬ 
tion  of  the  Christians  ceased  and  the  empire  had  become 
Christian,  the  holiness  of  sterile  virginity  became  an  ac¬ 
cepted  Christian  doctrine.  From  this  time,  the  Byzantine 
Virgin  was  most  usually  represented  alone  and  childless;  or 
the  child  was  a  highly  conventionalized  figure  of  the  Son  of 
God.  The  maternal  relation  between  Virgin  and  Child  was 
conspicuously  absent.  Sterility,  rather  than  motherhood,  is 
depicted. 1 

1  Greek  pictures  of  the  Virgin  may  still  be  seen  in  many  of  the  towns 
of  Southern  Italy  such  as  Amalfi,  Barletta,  Otranto,  Ravello,  Salerno. 


i;6  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


“This  type  gradually  degenerates  with  the  darkness  of 
the  age  and  the  decline  of  art.  The  countenance  sweetly 
smiling  on  the  child  becomes  sad  and  severe.  The  head  is 
bowed  with  a  gloomy  and  almost  sinister  expression,  and 
the  countenance  gradually  darkens  till  it  assumes  a  black 
colour.  At  length  even  the  sentiment  of  maternal  affection  is 
effaced ,  both  the  mother  and  child  become  stiff  and  lifeless, 
the  child  is  swathed  in  stiff  bands,  and  has  an  expression  of 
pain,  rather  than  of  gentleness,  or  placid  infancy.” 
(Milman,  History  of  Christianity ,  III,  p.  394.) 

In  the  west,  after  the  thirteenth  century  this  symbolic 
representation  of  the  Virgin  was  entirely  reversed;  fruitful 
instead  of  sterile  virginity  was  painted.  She  gained  in  Italy 
a  new  name,  characteristic  of  a  new  worship.  Instead  of  the 
Orante,  alone  and  sterile,  she  became  the  Madonna , — the 
Virgin  Mother,  pure  and  fruitful.  Piety,  chastity,  abnega¬ 
tion,  obedience,  devotion,  and  holiness  were  depicted  on  her 
countenance;  and  she  was  shown  above  all  as  the  M other ; 
occasionally  alone,  listening  to  the  annunciation  of  her 
pregnancy,  but  most  often  with  her  new-born  naked  babe, 
adoring,  fondling,  or  suckling  him.  So  often  was  she  pic¬ 
tured  with  her  Child,  that  it  is  much  more  difficult  to  find  a 
mediaeval  picture  of  the  Virgin  without  the  Christ  Child 
than  with  Him.1 

After  the  thirteenth  century,  pictures  of  the  Virgin  and 
Child  were  in  great  demand.  Bernardo  Daddi  (about  1330- 

The  best  example  I  have  found  is  in  the  Church  of  Santa  Maria  In- 
coronata  at  Positano.  This  picture  was  brought  by  Greek  sailors  from 
Constantinople.  They  were  overtaken  by  storm,  ascribed  their  miracu¬ 
lous  preservation  to  its  virtues,  and  when  they  made  the  land  they  built 
a  church  where  the  picture  now  hangs  behind  the  altar.  All  these  Greek 
pictures  of  the  Virgin  differ  from  the  Italian  Madonna  in  the  common 
and  universal  characteristic  that  they  depict  sterility  instead  of  matem- 
ity. 

The  famous  Hodegetria  in  the  cathedral  at  Bari,  a  picture  of  the 
Virgin  reputed  to  have  been  painted  by  St.  Luke,  cannot  be  included 
as  a  true  example  of  the  Byzantine  Virgin. 

1  The  catalogue  of  the  National  Gallery  at  London  contains  176 
entries  in  its  index  of  the  Virgin.  Of  these  only  six  depict  her  alone. 
There  is  no  example  of  the  Byzantine  Virgin. 


MODERN  CIVILIZATION 


177 


1336)  painted  great  numbers  of  small  Madonnas  which  could 
be  used  as  portable  domestic  altar  pieces,  and,  from  this 
period,  the  chaste  Madonna — the  pious  but  fruitful  Virgin — 
was  worshipped  by  all  the  Christians  of  Western  Europe. 
Every  church  was  adorned  by  Her ;  every  house  that  could 
afford  it, — nay  every  bed-chamber, — contained  her  picture. 
Sculpture  seconded  painting,  and  an  image  of  the  Virgin 
and  her  Child,  could  be  seen  at  every  wayside  crossing. 
No  vendor  of  soaps  or  pills  has  ever  advertised  them  more 
extensively.  All  of  Western  Europe  was  told  in  picture,  and 
stone,  and  image  that  Christian  salvation  had  come  to  man¬ 
kind,  not  through  the  sterile  Virgin,  but  through  the  Virgin 
Mother ;  and  that  chastity,  piety,  and  virginity,  might,  by 
the  will  of  God,  be  fruitful  as  well  as  barren.  The  Christian 
doctrine  and  practice  of  a  thousand  years  were  reversed — 
not,  however,  in  the  ancient  Christian  lands  of  Eastern 
Europe.  Only  the  barbarians  of  the  West  heard  the  new 
doctrine  and  saw  the  new  birth. 

92.  “Holy”  Matrimony. — The  “church  wedding”  of 
the  present  day  is  a  familiar  spectacle.  The  bride,  on  her 
father’s  arm,  leading  the  solemn  procession  up  the  aisle  to 
the  altar;  the  waiting  bride-groom;  the  officiating  clergy, 
receiving  the  bride  from  her  father  into  the  hands  of  the 
Church,  and  bestowing  her  with  the  Church’s  blessing  upon 
the  bride-groom;  the  bridesmaids,  groomsmen,  witnesses, 
ushers,  and  attendants;  the  great  concourse  of  friends  and 
relations;  all  assembled  at  a  solemn  religious  ceremony 
proclaimed  to  celebrate  the  holy  ordinance  of  matrimony 
which,  by  divine  decree,  consecrates  a  virgin  to  fruitfulness. 
All  this  is  done  decently,  modestly,  with  prayers  and  bene¬ 
diction,  as  befits  a  religious  solemnity.  The  coarse  jokes, 
the  ribaldry  and  horse-play  have  disappeared,  and  are  re¬ 
membered  only  in  a  few  old  traditional  customs  which  sym¬ 
bolize  them,  as  the  Romans  used  annually  to  throw  human 
images  into  the  Tiber  to  symbolize  a  human  sacrifice  which 
had  long  passed  away.  The  spiritual,  not  the  carnal  side  of 
marriage,  is  uppermost.  And  the  bridal  couple  after  the 


VOL.  I — 12 


178  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OP  CIVILIZATION 


celebration,  are  suffered  to  depart  (“I  and  Albert  alone”) 
without  further  priestly  interference.  The  spectacle  is  now 
so  familiar  that  many  Christians  suppose  that  it  was  always 
a  part  of  the  Christian  Church.  It  is,  in  fact,  about  three 
hundred  years  old;  and  synchronizes  with  the  rise  of  civiliza¬ 
tion  since  the  sixteenth  century.  Prior  to  the  Reformation, 
the  Church  celebrated  with  great  solemnity  those  rites  which 
consecrated  men  and  women  to  sterility ;  the  rite  of  marriage 
was  pagan  in  tradition  and  practice. 

93.  It  was  the  newly  Christianized  barbarians  of  the 
West  that  effected,  after  ten  centuries,  a  reversal  in  Christian 
ideas  respecting  marriage.  During  the  first  three  centuries, 
when  their  spiritual  stature  was  steadily  rising,  and  the 
Christians  improved  so  as  to  withstand  and  defy  persecu¬ 
tion  and  to  seize  the  imperial  power,  the  Christian  Fathers, 
though  they  elevated  virginity  above  marriage,  spoke  very 
strongly  on  the  folly,  and  even  the  impiety  of  prohibiting 
lawful  wedlock.  They  acknowledged  and  urged  the  ad¬ 
mitted  fact  that  several  of  the  Apostles  were  married.  This 
is  the  tone  of  Ignatius  (a.d.  ioi),  of  Tertullian  (a.d.  192), 
and  above  all  of  Clement  of  Alexandria  (a.d.  192). 

“But  in  the  fourth  century  the  eloquent  Fathers  vie  with 
each  other  in  exalting  the  transcendant,  holy,  angelic  virtue 
of  virginity.  Every  one  of  the  more  distinguished  writers — 
Basil,  the  two  Gregories,  Ambrose,  Augustine,  Chrysostom, 
has  a  treatise  or  treatises,  upon  virginity,  on  which  he  ex¬ 
pands  with  all  the  glowing  language  he  can  command.  It 
became  a  common  doctrine  that  sexual  intercourse  was  the 
sign  and  consequence  of  the  Fall.”  (Milman,  History  of 
Christianity ,  III,  11.) 

Marriage  was  inexorably  condemned.  St.  Augustine  taught 
that  the  unmarried  children  will  shine  in  heaven  like  beam¬ 
ing  stars,  whilst  their  parents  will  look  like  the  dim  ones. 
Jerome  is  the  most  vehement  of  all.  “I  glorify  marriage, 
but  only  for  this,  that  it  gives  us  virgins.”  “Though  it 
may  be  marriage  that  replenishes  the  earth,  it  is  virginity 


MODERN  CIVILIZATION 


179 


that  fills  heaven."1  And  the  impurity  of  marriage,  the 
superior  sanctity  of  sterility  continued,  until  the  German 
invasion  of  Italy,  to  be  orthodox  Christian  doctrine. 

94.  The  Christian  peoples  to  whom  this  doctrine  was 
taught,  completely  disappeared.  Where  their  lands  were 
not  conquered  and  repeopled  by  infidels,  they  were  invaded 
and  settled  by  new  races  of  barbarians,  Christianized  since 
the  Fathers  had  taught  the  impurity  of  marriage.  Among 
these  new  Christians,  marriage  was  an  ancient  and  honored 
pagan  institution.  It  was  usually  monogamous,  and  the 
monogamous  wife  was  looked  on  with  the  greatest  respect. 
It  was  usually  for  life.  It  was  usually  marked  by  a  transfer 
of  property  with  or  for  the  bride.  Among  freemen  and  the 
upper  classes,  the  bargain  was  made  between  men,  and  the 
bride  with  her  estate  was  its  subject  matter. 

Tacitus’  evidence  of  sexual  purity  and  monogamous 
marriage  among  the  pagan  Germans  in  the  first  century 
a.d.  is  here  given: 

“  Marriage  is  considered  as  a  strict  and  sacred  institution. 
In  the  national  character  there  is  nothing  so  truly  commend¬ 
able.  To  be  contented  with  one  wife,  is  peculiar  to  the 
Germans.  They  differ,  in  this  respect,  from  all  other  savage 
nations.  There  are,  indeed,  a  few  instances  of  polygamy; 
not,  however,  the  effect  of  loose  desire,  but  occasioned  by 
the  ambition  of  various  families,  who  court  the  alliance  of 
the  chief,  distinguished  by  the  nobility  of  his  rank  and 
character.  The  bride  brings  no  portion;  she  receives  a 
dowry  from  her  husband.  In  the  presence  of  her  parents 
and  relations,  he  makes  a  tender  of  part  of  his  wealth;  if 
accepted,  the  match  is  approved.  In  the  choice  of  the 
presents,  female  vanity  is  not  consulted.  There  are  no 
frivolous  trinkets  to  adorn  the  future  bride.  The  whole 
fortune  consists  of  oxen,  a  caparisoned  horse,  a  shield,  a 
spear,  and  a  sword.  She,  in  return,  delivers  a  present  of 
arms,  and,  by  this  exchange  of  gifts,  the  marriage  is  con¬ 
cluded.  This  is  the  nuptial  ceremony,  this  is  the  bond  of 
union,  these  their  hymeneal  gods.  Lest  the  wife  should 

1  “Nuptiae  terram  replennet,  virginitas  Paradisum. 

“Laudo  nuptias,  laudo  conjugium,  sed  quia  mihi  virgines  generat.” 


i8o  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


think  her  sex  an  exemption  from  the  rigours  of  the  severest 
virtue,  and  the  toils  of  war,  she  is  informed  of  her  duty  by 
the  marriage  ceremony,  and  thence  she  learns,  that  she  is 
received  by  her  husband  to  be  his  partner  in  toil  and  danger, 
to  dare  with  him  in  war,  and  suffer  with  him  in  peace.  The 
oxen  yoked,  the  horse  accoutred,  and  the  arms  given  on  the 
occasion,  inculcate  this  lesson;  and  thus  she  is  prepared  to 
live,  and  thus  to  die.  These  are  the  terms  of  their  union; 
she  receives  her  armour  as  a  sacred  treasure,  to  be  pre¬ 
served  inviolate,  and  transmitted  with  honour  to  her  sons, 
a  portion  for  their  wives,  and  from  them  descending  to  her 
grand-children.  ’  ’ 

“  In  consequence  of  these  manners,  the  married  state  is  a 
life  of  affection  and  female  constancy.  The  virtue  of  the 
woman  is  guarded  from  seduction;  no  public  spectacles  to 
seduce  her ;  no  banquets  to  inflame  her  passions ;  no  baits  of 
pleasure  to  disarm  her  virtue.  The  art  of  intriguing  by 
clandestine  letters  is  unknown  to  both  sexes.  Populous 
as  the  country  is,  adultery  is  rarely  heard  of :  when  detected, 
the  punishment  is  instant,  and  inflicted  by  the  husband. 
He  cuts  off  the  hair  of  his  guilty  wife,  and,  having  assembled 
her  relations,  expels  her  naked  from  his  house,  pursuing  her 
with  stripes  through  the  village.  To  public  loss  of  honour 
no  favour  is  shown.  She  may  possess  beauty,  youth,  and 
riches:  but  a  husband  she  can  never  obtain.  Vice  is  not 
treated  by  the  Germans  as  a  subject  of  raillery,  nor  is  the 
profligacy  of  corrupting  and  being  corrupted  called  the 
fashion  of  the  age.  By  the  practice  of  some  states,  female 
virtue  is  advanced  to  still  higher  perfection ;  with  them  none 
but  virgins  marry.  When  the  bride  has  fixed  her  choice,  her 
hopes  of  matrimony  are  closed  for  life.  With  one  husband, 
as  with  one  life,  one  mind,  one  body,  every  woman  is  satis¬ 
fied  ;  in  him  her  happiness  is  centered ;  her  desires  extend  no 
further;  and  the  principle  is  not  only  an  affection  for  her 
husband’s  person,  but  a  reverence  for  the  married  state.  To 
set  limits  to  population,  by  rearing  up  only  a  certain  number 
of  children,  and  destroying  the  rest,  is  accounted  a  flagitious 
crime.  Among  the  savages  of  Germany,  virtuous  manners 
operate  more  than  good  laws  in  other  countries.”  (Tacitus, 
A  Treatise  on  the  Situation ,  Manner sf  and  People  of  Ger¬ 
many ,  Chaps.  XVIII  and  XIX.) 

Among  the  barbarians,  after  their  conversion  to  Chris¬ 
tianity,  the  same  marriage  customs  continued;  except  that 


MODERN  CIVILIZATION 


181 


as  property,  especially  movable  or  personal  property,  in¬ 
creased,  it  became  an  increasing  factor  in  marriage  as  in 
other  incidents  of  life. 

“With  the  Old  English,  as  well  as  among  the  other 
Teutonic  peoples,  at  the  dawn  of  history  marriage  was  a 
private  transaction,  taking  the  form  of  a  sale  of  the  bride 
by  the  father  or  other  legal  guardian  to  the  bridegroom. 
The  procedure  consisted  of  two  parts:  First  was  the  be- 
weddung  or  betrothal;  and  second,  the  gifts  or  actual  tradi¬ 
tion  of  the  bride  at  the  nuptials.  The  beweddung  was  a  ‘  real 
contract  of  sale,’  essential  to  which  was  one-sided  per¬ 
formance;  that  is,  payment  by  the  bridegroom  of  the  Weo- 
tuma  or  Witthum ,  the  price  of  the  bride.  In  ancient  times 
the  person  of  the  woman  was  doubtless  the  object  of  pur¬ 
chase;  and  within  the  historical  period  woman,  among  most 
Teutonic  peoples,  remained  in  perpetual  tutelage.  When 
the  guardianship  of  the  father  or  other  male  relation,  as 
representative  of  the  clan-group  or  Sippe ,  ended,  that  of  the 
husband  began.” 

“As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  Old  English  laws  speak  bluntly 
of  ‘  buying  a  maid ;’  and  in  Germany  ‘  to  buy  a  wife '  was  a 
familiar  phrase  of  marriage  throughout  the  Middle  Ages.” 
(Howard,  History  of  Matrimonial  Institutions ,  Chap.  VI.) 

Among  the  nobles  and  landlords,  the  association  of  cover¬ 
ture  with  the  acquirement  of  property  rights  and  privileges, 
was  still  greater.  Marriage  was  a  muniment  of  title  to 
real  estate. 

“This  will  appear  still  more  clearly  if  we  consider  feudal 
marriages.  On  this  subject  poetical  and  historical  sources 
are  in  remarkable  accord.  Long  ago  it  was  said:  In  the 
manners  and  customs  of  that  epoch  marriage  was,  before 
all  else,  a  union  of  two  seigniories.  The  seignior  married  in 
order  to  extend  his  fief,  as  well  as  to  raise  sons  capable  of 
defending  it;  in  his  eyes  a  wife  represented,  above  all,  an 
estate  and  a  castle. 

*  ‘  The  first  consequence  of  this  peculiar  conception  was  that 
the  husband  was  chosen  by  the  father  or  suzerain,  and  the 
feeling  of  the  young  girl  to  be  married  was  not  consulted 
in  any  way.  The  feudal  heiress  passively  received  the 
knight  or  baron  who  was  destined  for  her.  She  was,  in  a 
sense,  absorbed  in  the  estate  or  the  castle;  she  formed  a  part 


1 82  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


of  the  real  estate;  she  passed  with  the  land  to  the  one  who 
was  to  possess  it,  and  her  consent  mattered  little.  As  a 
young  girl,  orphan,  or  widow  she  could  not  resist  her  father, 
who  held  the  seigniory,  or  the  suzerain,  who  in  certain  cases 
had  acquired  the  disposal  of  it.  On  this  point,  as  always, 
feudal  usage  appears  in  the  chansons  de  geste  in  striking 
relief.  The  kings  are  to  be  seen  distributing  fiefs,  and  the 
women  who  represent  them,  to  their  faithful  vassals  as  if  it 
were  purely  a  question  of  material  interests.  {Social  France 
at  the  Time  of  Philip  Augustus ,  Luchaire,  Chap.  XI).  See 
the  citations  of  authorities. 

95.  The  Mediaeval  Church,  composed  of  newly  Chris¬ 
tianized  barbarians,  laggingly  followed  their  barbarian 
marriage  customs ;  so  that  gradually,  after  the  tenth  century, 
the  Western  Church  separated  from  the  earlier  view  of 
marriage,  once  universal  in  the  Christian  Church,  and  from 
the  view  still  held  by  the  contemporaneous  Eastern  Church, 
and  followed  the  barbarians  in  making  a  public  acknowledg¬ 
ment  and  dedication  of  chastity  to  fruitfulness.  Ecclesias¬ 
tical  progress  toward  the  new  view  of  marriage  was  slow.  It 
is  recounted  by  Howard  in  his  History  of  Matrimonial  In¬ 
stitutions ,  Chapters  VII  and  VIII.  In  the  tenth  century, 
Christians  were  still  married  according  to  pagan  rites.  The 
Church  pronounced  its  benediction  but  did  not  join  husband 
and  wife  in  matrimony.  By  the  fourteenth  century,  the 
priest  “gives  the  woman  to  the  man,  saying  in  Latin  the 
words:  I  join  you  in  the  name  of  the  Father,  Son,  and  Holy 
Ghost,  Amen.”  This  formula  is  never  found  earlier  than 
the  fourteenth  century.  Marriage  was  recognized  as  one  of 
the  seven  sacraments:  first  in  1164,  in  the  fourth  book  of 
Peter  Lombard’s  Sentences;  next  in  1208,  by  Innocent  IV, 
in  the  Profession  of  Faith  prescribed  for  the  Waldensians. 
Finally,  in  the  Council  of  Florence  in  1439,  and  the  Council 
of  Trent  in  1545-63,  “Holy”  Matrimony  was  expressly 
recognized  and  claimed  as  a  sacrament  of  the  Church. 

In  the  tenth  century,  the  Western  Church  extended  its 
blessing  to  matrimony ;  joined  husband  and  wife  in  wedlock 
in  the  fourteenth ;  but  did  not  permit  marriages  to  be  per- 


MODERN  CIVILIZATION 


183 


formed  within  the  body  of  the  House  of  God  until  the  six¬ 
teenth.  All  the  ancient  missals  mention  the  placing  of  the 
man  and  woman  before  the  door  of  the  church,  at  the  begin¬ 
ning  of  the  nuptial  ceremony,  and  direct,  towards  the  con¬ 
clusion,  that  here  they  shall  enter  the  church  as  far  as  the 
step  of  the  altar.  And  the  reason  vulgarly  assigned  for  this 
was  that  “it  would  have  been  indecent  to  give  permission 
within  the  Church  for  a  man  and  a  woman  to  sleep  to¬ 
gether.”  “Until  the  time  of  Edward  VI,  marriages  were 
performed  in  the  church-porch,  and  not  in  the  church. 
Edward  I  was  married  at  the  door  of  Canterbury  cathedral, 
September  9, 1299,  to  Margaret,  sister  of  the  king  of  France; 
and  until  1599,  the  people  of  France  were  married  at  the 
church-door.”1  The  Wif  of  Bathe  begins  her  prologue,  “Hus- 
bondes  at  chirche  dore  have  I  had  five.”  Under  King  Ed¬ 
ward  VI  (1547-1553),  the  parliamentary  reformation  of 
marriage  and  other  rites,  first  permitted  the  man  and  wo¬ 
man  to  come  into  the  body  or  middle  of  the  church,  stand¬ 
ing  no  longer  as  formerly  at  the  door.  In  Herrick’s  Hes- 
perides  (1648),  there  is  still  found  a  “porch  Verse”  written 
for  a  marriage,  and  indicating  that  the  custom  of  marrying 
people  at  the  church-porch  had  been  so  long  established 
that  it  survived  a  century  after  the  Reformation. 

The  decree  of  the  fourth  Council  of  Carthage,  398  a.d., 
enacted  that  “when  the  bride-groom  and  bride  have  re¬ 
ceived  the  benediction  let  them  remain  that  same  night  in  a 
state  of  virginity  out  of  reverence  for  the  benediction.” 
“But  in  time  the  clergy  judged  it  expedient  to  mitigate  the 
rigour  of  the  canon,  and  accordingly  they  granted  husbands 
the  right  of  lying  with  their  own  wives  on  the  first  night  of 
marriage,  provided  that  they  paid  a  moderate  fee  for  the 
privilege  to  the  proper  ecclesiastical  authority.  This  was 
the  true  jus  primae  noctis .”2  ( Folk-lore  in  the  Old  Testa- 

1  Brand,  Popular  Antiquities,  Tit,  Marriage  Ceremony. 

2  In  Amiens  the  episcopal  officers  until  1607  exacted  a  tribute  from 
newly  married  couples  for  permission  to  pass  together  the  first  three  nights 
after  the  wedding.  (Lea,  History  of  Sacerdotal  Celibacy ,  Chap.  XXI.) 


1 84  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


merit:  Studies  in  Comparative  Religion ,  Legend  and  Law . 
By  Sir  James  George  Frazer.)  Sir  James  Frazer  cites  a 
great  quantity  of  convincing  evidence. 

“In  the  Papal  times  no  new-married  couple  couid  go  to 
bed  together  till  the  bridal  bed  had  been  blessed.  In  a 
manuscript  entitled,  Historical  Passages  concerning  the 
Clergy  in  the  Papal  Times,  cited  in  the  History  of  Shrews¬ 
bury,  1779,  p.  92,  it  is  stated  that  ‘the  pride  of  the  clergy 
and  the  bigotry  of  the  laity  were  such  that  new-married 
couples  were  made  to  wait  till  mid-night,  after  the  marriage- 
day,  before  they  would  pronounce  a  benediction,  unless 
handsomely  paid  for  it,  and  they  durst  not  undress  without 
it,  on  pain  of  excommunication.’  ”  (Brand,  Popular  Anti¬ 
quities,  Tit:  Sack-Posset,  Vol.  II.) 

Thus,  it  appears,  that  from  398  a.d.,  when  Christian 
civilization  was  crumbling,  down  to  the  fifteenth  century, 
the  space  of  full  one  thousand  years,  orthodox  Christians 
submitted  to  the  view  that  marriage  was  a  carnal  indulgence 
which  the  Church  could  not  approve,  but  tolerated  for  the 
weakness  of  mankind,  and  for  a  payment  of  money. 

96.  The  recognition  of  matrimony  as  “holy,”  and  as  a 
sacrament  of  the  Church,  had  two  immediate  and  important 
consequences : 

I.  Indissoluble  monogamous  marriage,  already  an  estab¬ 
lished  custom  of  the  Western  barbarians,  now  received  re¬ 
ligious  or  superstitious  sanction,  and  in  a  few  generations 
was  venerated  as  an  ordinance  of  God. 

II.  The  power  of  convents  to  affect  posterity  by  the 
adverse  selection  of  all  the  pious  virgins  for  sterility,  was 
greatly  curtailed  and  almost  extinguished. 

The  Christian  Empire  of  Rome,  both  east  and  west,  had 
never  required  or  enforced  indissoluble  monogamous  mar¬ 
riage.  The  institution  of  marriage  had  originated  and 
declined  among  the  pagan  inhabitants  of  the  empire;  was 
denounced  by  the  Christian  Fathers  of  the  fourth  century 
as  inferior  to  celibacy;  and  was  regarded,  therefore,  under 
the  Christian  successors  of  Constantine  as  a  pagan  rather 


MODERN  CIVILIZATION 


185 


than  a  Christian  inheritance.  The  marriage  ceremony  was  a 
pagan  and  not  a  Christian  rite.  The  Church  pointed  to 
sterility  as  the  way  to  heaven,  and  received  and  enforced 
the  monastic  but  not  the  marriage  vows  of  the  faithful. 
The  Roman  laws  regulating  the  cohabitation  of  men  and 
women,  including  concubinage  as  well  as  marriage,  and 
establishing  the  rights  of  offspring,  remained  under  the 
Christian  substantially  what  they  had  been  under  the  pagan 
Emperors.  Some  futile  and  short-lived  attempts  at  change 
were  made.  In  general,  however,  in  the  Eastern  empire, 
under  Constantine’s  successors  for  a  thousand  years,  the 
Roman  civil  law  contemplated  parentage  as  the  result  of  a 
free  union  of  a  man  and  woman.  The  union  might  be  non¬ 
ceremonial,  which  was  concubinage;  or  it  might  be  cere¬ 
monial,  which  was  marriage.  The  offspring  of  either  form 
of  union  had  the  rights  awarded  them  by  law.  In  both 
forms  of  union,  the  selection  of  mothers  was  about  the  same, 
i.e.,  motherhood  was  undertaken  voluntarily  by  a  woman 
who  preferred  it  to  sterility,  and  who  could  escape  it  if  she 
chose.  In  concubinage,  this  resulted  from  the  loose  form 
of  the  union  which  was  simply  a  non-ceremonial  and  volun¬ 
tary  cohabitation.  In  marriage,  it  resulted  from  equal 
rights  of  property  and  of  divorce,  which  in  this  age  were  en¬ 
joyed  by  Roman  wives.  With  inconsiderable  exceptions, 
the  right  of  “free  divorce,”  or  divorce  by  mutual  consent, 
was  preserved  throughout  the  whole  history  of  the  Eastern 
empire;  and  likewise  the  right  to  a  divorce  upon  the  peti¬ 
tion  of  the  wife  as  well  as  upon  the  petition  of  the  husband. 

Let  voluntary  cohabitation  and  free  divorce  be  coupled 
for  a  few  generations  with  the  idea  that  marriage  is  impure, 
and  religious  virginity  should  be  chosen  by  all  who  can  abide 
it;  and  soon  the  result  will  be  to  debase  marriage  into  the 
carnal  union  that  it  is  accused  of  being.  Pious  and  cold 
women  will  be  sterilized  by  their  religion  or  their  repug¬ 
nance.  Posterity  will  be  descended  from  the  remainder. 
So  that,  in  a  few  generations,  the  marriage  ceremony  will 
unite  for  carnal  gratification  the  descendants  of  parents 


186  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


who  were  themselves  united  for  carnal  gratification.  The 
selection  of  motherhood  will  be  wholly  adverse.  No  one  will 
be  able  to  claim  descent  from  a  mother  whose  children  were 
begotten  of  the  holy  spirit  of  obedience,  abnegation,  piety, 
or  duty,  instead  of  sexual  desire. 

97.  In  the  west  of  Europe,  the  adverse  selection  of 
motherhood,  after  the  tenth  century,  gradually  improved. 
The  barbarian  invasion  of  the  ancient  Roman  provinces 
expunged  for  the  time  being  the  ancient  Roman  law.  The 
barbarians  had  laws  and  customs  of  their  own.  In  the  tenth 
and  eleventh  centuries,  the  displacement  was  complete; 
new  peoples,  newly  converted  to  Christianity,  with  new 
laws  and  new  marriage  customs,  formed  the  new  Christen¬ 
dom  of  the  West.  To  these  Teutonic  tribes,  the  voluntary 
union  of  man  and  woman  was  not  marriage  or  even  concu¬ 
binage,  but  whoredom.  Marriage  was  a  bargain  between 
freemen;  between  king  and  courtier,  suzerain  and  vassal 
or  father  and  son-in-law.  The  subject  of  the  bargain  was  a 
virgin  who  was  to  be  wedded  for  life  to  the  man  accepted  as 
her  husband.  Her  own  wishes  were  not  considered.  If  she 
was  heiress  to  a  fief,  she  went  with  the  fief.  If  she  was 
daughter  of  a  freeman,  another  freeman  bought  her  from 
her  father.  She  was  not  permitted  to  consecrate  her  virgin¬ 
ity  to  religious  sterility ;  on  the  contrary  it  was  by  marriage 
publicly  dedicated  to  fruitfulness,  and  received  acknowledg¬ 
ment  and  reward  in  the  morning-gift.  After  marriage,  she 
was  not  allowed  to  petition  for  divorce.  Her  husband’s 
rights  over  her  person  and  estate  were  permanent  and 
indissoluble,  acquired  by  purchase  or  gift  from  the  man  who 
had  the  right  to  dispose  of  them  by  giving  her  in  marriage. 
Title  thus  acquired  by  marriage  was  indefeasible ;  she  could 
no  more  set  aside  the  transfer  of  her  person  than  the  con¬ 
veyance  of  the  castle  or  fief  which  went  with  it.  Her  hus¬ 
band’s  title  to  one  was  as  good  as  to  the  other. 

“So  long  as  marriage  was  a  strictly  civil  (lay)  ceremony, 
as  well  as  a  purely  civil  engagement,  the  bride’s  father  or 


MODERN  CIVILIZATION 


187 


guardian  performed  the  rite.  It  was  he  who  took  her  by  the 
neck  and  shoulders  and  gave  her  to  the  bridegroom.  He 
gave  the  symbolic  shoe.  In  the  Danish  matrimonial  rite  of 
a  subsequent  period,  the  father’s  part  was  even  more  im¬ 
pressive.  In  language,  never  in  later  times  permitted  to  our 
English  clergy,  he  declared  himself  the  actual  maker  of  the 
marriage,  when,  on  handfasting  the  bride  and  groom,  he 
said  to  the  latter,  ‘  I  join  this  woman  to  you  in  honour  to 
be  your  wife,  with  a  right  to  half  of  your  bed  and  keys,  and 
to  a  third  of  your  goods  acquired  or  to  be  acquired,  accord¬ 
ing  to  the  law  of  the  land  and  St.  Eric.  In  the  name  of  the 
Father  and  of  the  Son,  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost.’”  (Jeaff re- 
son,  Brides  and  Bridals ,  I,  53.) 

This  barbarian  ideal  of  marriage  was  gradually  adopted  by 
the  Western  Church.  In  a  religious  age,  religious  sanction 
was  added  to  secular  custom.  The  Church,  which  had  once 
considered  marriage  as  worldly  and  impure,  now  adopted 
rites  for  its  solemnization.  By  a  slow  progress,  it  superseded 
and  bettered  barbarian  law.  Many  centuries  passed  before 
it  would  join  a  man  and  woman  in  “holy”  matrimony,  or 
pronounce  them  man  and  wife;  but  when  this  point  was 
reached  it  soon  claimed  the  sole  right  to  perform  the  mar¬ 
riage  ceremony,  and  denounced  as  adulterers  and  fornica¬ 
tors  those  who  cohabited  without  its  intervention.  It  took 
to  itself  the  whole  law  of  marriage  and  divorce,  and  declared 
who  were  married,  whose  marriages  were  annulled,  and  who 
might  marry  again.  Wedlock  changed  from  a  temporal 
custom  to  a  religious  mystery;  matrimony  became  “holy” 
matrimony;  and  the  Church,  gratified  with  an  enormous 
accession  to  its  power,  repeated  on  every  occasion  “what 
therefore  God  hath  joined  together,  let  not  man  put  asun¬ 
der.”  The  marriage  service  adapted  itself  to  the  new 
dogma.  Freemen  had  given  or  sold  their  virgin  daughters 
in  marriage  to  an  accepted  husband.  The  Church  adopted 
a  rubric  whereby  the  father  gave  his  daughter  unto  the 
Church ;  and  the  Church  thereupon  bestowed  her  upon  the 
bridegroom .  So  that  by  a  beautiful  symbolism ,  still  preserved 
in  the  marriage  service  of  the  English  Church,  a  pure  virgin 


1 88  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


is,  under  the  ordinance  of  God  and  by  a  religious  ceremony, 
consecrated  by  the  Church  to  fruitfulness.  She  is  blessed 
with  children,  not  because  she  has  felt  the  desires  of  earth, 
but  because  she  has  obeyed  an  ordinance  of  heaven.1 

98.  After  the  Fourth  Lateran  Council  (1215)  forbade 
the  further  multiplication  of  religious  houses,  one  of  the 
marked  effects  of  the  ecclesiastical  doctrine  of  “holy” 
matrimony,  was  a  change  in  the  selection  of  the  inmates  of 
convents.  So  long  as  faithful  and  devout  Christians  were 
taught  to  regard  marriage  and  fruitfulness  as  worldly 
vices,  virginity  and  sterility  as  heavenly  virtues,  conventual 
life  exercised  over  motherhood  a  continuously  adverse 
selection.  Perennially  it  sterilized  all  those  women  who 
were  most  pious  or  most  cold,  leaving  posterity  to  descend 
from  the  remainder.  After  the  Church  recognized  matri¬ 
mony  as  “holy,”  and  proclaimed  marriage  as  a  sacrament, 
the  convent’s  power  to  continue  its  adverse  selection  was 
greatly  curtailed,  and  almost  ceased.  Girls  were  still  sent 
to  convents,  but  the  line  of  spiritual  selection  was  modified. 
It  was  no  longer  the  pious  and  obedient  that  were  marked 
out  for  conventual  sterility,  and  the  ardent  and  unruly  for 

1  It  was  in  this  way  that  Mary,  Mother  of  Jesus,  was  married.  The 
account  is  found  in  the  works  of  St.  Jerome,  but  was  known  in  the  earliest 
ages  as  the  “Gospel  of  the  birth  of  Mary,”  and  was  attributed  to  St. 
Matthew. 

“At  that  time  the  high-priest  made  a  public  order.  That  all  the  vir¬ 
gins  who  had  public  settlements  in  the  temple,  and  were  come  to  this 
age,  should  return  home,  and,  as  they  were  now  of  a  proper  maturity, 
should,  according  to  the  custom  of  their  country,  endeavour  to  be 
married. 

“To  which  command,  though  all  the  other  virgins  readily  yielded  obedi¬ 
ence,  Mary  the  Virgin  of  the  Lord  alone  answered,  that  she  could  not 
comply  with  it. 

“Assigning  these  reasons,  that  both  she  and  her  parents  had  devoted 
her  to  the  service  of  the  Lord;  and  besides,  that  she  had  vowed  virginity 
to  the  Lord  which  vow  she  was  resolved  never  to  break  through  by 
lying  with  a  man.”  ( The  Gospel  of  the  Birth  of  Mary,  Chap.  V,  Verses 
4,  5,  b.) 

Notwithstanding  her  objections  she  was  betrothed  and  married  to 


MODERN  CIVILIZATION 


189 

marriage  and  fruitfulness.  Girls  were  given  to  sterility,  as 
they  were  given  to  marriage,  by  a  will  other  than  their  own. 
“The  little  girl  was  brought  up  with  the  idea  that  some  day, 
as  soon  as  might  be,  she  should  marry  that  boy,  just  as  for 
two  centuries  in  the  famous  houses  of  Catholic  countries 
many  of  the  daughters  were  brought  up  in  the  expectation 
that  one  day  they  should  take  the  veil.”  (Ferrero,  Women 
of  the  Caesars,  Chap.  I.)  Marriage  and  conventual  life  had 
become  equally  holy.  Equally  it  was  the  duty  of  an  obedi¬ 
ent  daughter  of  a  house  to  accept  the  part  chosen  for  her  by 
others.  Piety,  chastity,  abnegation,  obedience,  and  duty 
now  called  her  to  motherhood  with  the  same  clear  con¬ 
science,  spiritual  sanction,  and  ecclesiastical  approval,  that 
once  had  called  her  only  to  sterility.  The  Church,  indeed, 
from  the  time  it  recognized  matrimony  as  “holy,”  taught  to 
the  faithful  the  duties  of  matrimonial  life,  as  formerly  it 
had  taught  them  the  duties  of  monastic  life.  Its  ministers 
read  from  its  altars  the  scriptural  injunction  of  obedience  by 
wives  to  husbands.  Brides  again  received  from  God’s 
anointed  the  admonition  once  given  to  Christian  women  by 
St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul. 

In  ten  centuries,  the  reversal  of  Christian  doctrine  was 


Joseph ;  having  been  dedicated  by  her  parents  to  the  Church  and  by  the 
Church  to  fruitfulness.  Her  consent  was  not  asked. 

The  Eastern  Church  preserves  the  ancient  orthodox  view  of  marriage 
“by  mutual  spontaneous  consent  of  both  the  parties."  The  bride  is  not 
given  in  marriage  either  by  her  parents  or  by  the  Church.  She  gives  her¬ 
self.  In  the  marriage  service  of  the  Orthodox  Church,  at  the  beginning: 

“The  priest  now  asks  them,  each  separately,  whether  they  have  the 
spontaneous  wish  and  firm  intention  to  contract  the  conjugal  union  with 
each  other,  and  whether  they  have  not  promised  to  contract  that  union 
with  any  one  else.  On  receiving  their  affirmative  answer  to  the  former 
question  and  their  negative  to  the  second,  the  priest  proceeds  to  the 
actual  rite  of  marriage."  (A  Manual  of  the  Orthodox  Church's  Divine 
Services.  Compiled  by  Arch-Priest  D.  Sokolof.) 

Thus  Christian  marriage  among  the  Teutonic  and  Scandinavian  races 
where  modem  civilization  grew  up,  followed  closely  the  marriage  cus¬ 
toms  which  made  Mary  fruitful.  The  marriage  customs  of  the  Eastern 
Church  would  have  left  her  barren. 


I90  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


complete.  The  Church  gave  its  brides,  in  the  fifth  century, 
to  the  cloister  and  dedicated  virgins  to  sterility ;  in  the  fif¬ 
teenth  century,  to  a  husband  and  consecrated  chastity  to 
fruitfulness.  The  reformation  was  accomplished  only  in  the 
Western  Church,  and  not  in  the  Eastern.  In  the  Western 
Church,  it  followed  the  barbarian  invasion;  began  only  in 
the  tenth  century  when  the  barbarian  conquest  was  com¬ 
plete;  was  first  promoted  by  the  barbarian  custom  of  the 
morning-gift,  or  public  acknowledgment  and  reward  for 
virginity  dedicated  to  fruitfulness;  next  by  images  of  the 
Virgin  Mother;  and  resulted  in  religious  or  “holy”  matri¬ 
mony.  Each  of  these  is  peculiar  to  Western  Christendom, 
and  each  followed  the  barbarian  inundation.  Together 
they  reversed  the  selection  of  motherhood  in  the  West. 
From  the  year  one  thousand  the  adverse  selection  of  six 
centuries  changed,  slowly,  but  with  mathematical  certainty, 
to  a  favorable  selection. 

99.  During  the  period  from  the  tenth  to  the  sixteenth 
century,  all  Western  Europe  was  in  some  degree  affected  by 
these  new  factors  in  the  selection  of  mothers :  the  morning- 
gift;  the  worship  of  the  Virgin  Mother;  and  the  religious 
solemnization  of *  *  holy’  ’  matrimony.  If  the  advance  of  civi¬ 
lization  during  this  period  is  attributable  to  these  factors, 
the  following  mathematical  results  might  be  expected: 

I.  The  advance  would  not  be  limited  to  a  single  nation, 
nor  confined  within  limited  geographical  boundaries.  It 
would  be  in  some  degree  common  to  all  Western  Christen¬ 
dom. 

II.  As  the  first  of  these  factors  in  point  of  time — morn¬ 
ing-gift — affected  only  those  classes  having  property,  the 
rise  of  that  class  would  occur  first. 

III.  T wo  of  these  factors — morning-gift ,  and  marriage — 
affect  only  freemen,  and  not  serfs.  Serfs  were  without 
property,  and  were  under  legal  disabilities  as  to  marriage. 
The  only  improving  factor  left  to  the  lowest  classes  of  society 
was  the  worship  of  the  Virgin  Mother.  Hence  improvement, 
not  dividing  on  geographical  lines,  should  divide  on  class 


MODERN  CIVILIZATION 


191 

lines,  and  the  posterity  of  rich  and  free-men  should  improve 
earlier  than  the  posterity  of  poor  and  bond-men. 1 

History  confirms  these  mathematical  expectations. 
Charlemagne’s  empire  marked  the  universal  weakness  of 
his  Christian  opponents  before  the  tenth  century.  After 
that  century,  there  is  not  again  seen  in  Western  Christen¬ 
dom  the  extinction  of  a  whole  people  so  that  a  conquering 
race  attaches  its  name  to  its  defeated  enemy’s  land.  Eng¬ 
land,  France,  Lombardy,  Andalusia,  Normandy,  preserve 
to  this  day  the  record  of  such  changes  before  the  tenth  cen¬ 
tury.  Eastern  Christendom  suffered,  as  late  as  the  fifteenth 
century ,  a  like  extinction,  still  recorded  in  the  name  Turkey. 
But  after  the  tenth  century  there  is  no  similar  record  in  the 
West.  It  is  apparent  that  the  rise  of  Christian  civilization 
was  common  to  all  nations,  races,  and  languages  of  Western 
Europe. 

100.  The  factor  first  in  point  of  time  to  begin  the  im¬ 
provement  of  Western  Christendom  was  the  morning-gift. 
This  is  traceable  as  early  as  the  tenth  century ;  whereas  the 
first  paintings  and  sculpture  of  the  virgin  Mother  were  not 
until  the  thirteenth  century,  and  the  Church  did  not  join 
man  and  wife  in  “holy”  matrimony  until  probably  the  four¬ 
teenth  or  late  in  the  thirteenth.  Posterity’s  improvement 
ought,  therefore,  first  co  be  noticeable  in  the  descendants  of 
that  aristocratic  class  of  society,  where  the  morning-gift 
always  followed  the  marriage  of  a  virgin,  proclaiming  and 
rewarding  the  purity  of  the  bride  whose  chastity  was  dedi¬ 
cated  by  wedlock  to  fruitfulness.  History  furnishes  evi¬ 
dence  that  this  is  where  improvement  first  occurred.  The 
morning-gift  was  a  Teutonic  custom.  The  most  brilliant 
and  valiant  Christians  of  the  tenth  century  were  German 
princes,  Henry  the  Fowler,  and  Otto  the  Great,  his  son. 
They  with  their  German  knights  stopped  the  incursions  of 

*  During  the  first  three  centuries,  when  the  Christian  was  superior  to 
the  pagan  selection  of  mothers,  the  order  of  spiritual  improvement  was 
just  the  reverse.  The  poor,  enslaved,  and  despised,  being  Christians, 
rose;  the  rich,  the  free  and  the  powerful,  being  pagans,  declined. 


1 92  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


the  Magyars  which  threatened  Christianity  in  the  tenth 
century,  as  Charles  Martel  had  stopped  the  Moslems  in  the 
eighth.  They  conquered  Italy,  revived  the  name  of  Holy 
Roman  Empire,  and  were  crowned  at  Rome.  Italy  was  for 
two  centuries  overrun  by  German  conquests  and  torn  be¬ 
tween  rival  German  lords.  And  in  Northern  Italy  the 
morning-gift  became  a  firmly  established  custom  in  noble 
houses.  It  was  here  that  the  Renaissance  began. 

Additional  evidence  is  to  be  found  in  the  rise  of  brilliant 
aristocrats  in  the  thirteenth  century. 

“It  was  an  age  of  great  rulers.  Indeed,  we  may  doubt  if 
any  hundred  years  of  European  history  has  been  so  crowded 
with  great  statesmen  and  kings.  In  England  Stephen  Lang- 
ton  and  the  authors  of  our  Great  Charter  in  1215;  William, 
Earl  Mareschal,  Simon  de  Montfort,  Earl  of  Leicester,  and 
above  all  Edward  I,  great  as  soldier,  as  ruler,  as  legislator — 
as  great  when  he  yielded  as  when  he  compelled.  In  France, 
Philip  Augustus,  a  king  curiously  like  our  Edward  I  in  his 
virtues  as  in  his  faults  though  earlier  by  three  generations ; 
Blanche,  his  son’s  wife,  Regent  of  France.  St.  Louis,  her 
son,  and  St.  Louis’  grandson,  the  terrible,  fierce,  subtle,  and 
adroit  Philip  the  Fair.  Then  on  the  throne  of  the  Empire, 
from  1220  to  1250,  Frederick  II,  ‘the  world’s  wonder,’  one 
of  the  most  brilliant  characters  of  the  Middle  Ages,  whose 
life  is  a  long  romance,  whose  many-sided  endowments 
seemed  to  promise  everything  but  real  greatness  and  abiding 
results.  Next,  after  a  generation,  his  successor,  less  brilliant 
but  far  more  truly  great,  Rudolph  of  Hapsburg,  emperor 
from  1273  to  1291,  the  founder  of  the  Austrian  dynasty,  the 
ancestor  of  its  sovereigns,  the  parallel,  I  had  almost  said 
the  equal  of  our  own  Edward  I.  In  Spain,  Ferdinand  III 
and  his  son  Alfonso  X,  whose  reigns  united  gave  Spain  peace 
and  prosperity  for  fifty-four  years  (1230-1284).”  (Frederic 
Harrison,  A  Survey  of  the  Thirteenth  Century.) 

In  the  three  centuries  preceding  these  brilliant  men  there 
were  no  great  cities  in  Western  Christendom.  Outside  the 
Christian  city  of  Constantinople,  the  large  towns  of  this 
period  were  all  Moslem.  There  was  little  Christian  com¬ 
merce,  no  wealth  but  land  and  no  bourgeois.  The  ances¬ 
tral  selection  which  created  these  brilliant  nobles  and 


MODERN  CIVILIZATION 


193 


princes  was  not  aided  by  education  or  schools  of  learning; 
nor  by  improvement  in  the  Church,  which  during  this  period 
was  declining;  nor  did  they  share  their  improvement  with 
the  peasantry  or  serfs,  who  during  all  this  time  were  griev¬ 
ously  oppressed.  In  respect  that  it  reverses  the  earlier 
instances  of  the  decline  of  barbarian  stocks  after  their  con¬ 
version  to  Christianity;  and  in  respect  that  it  runs  counter 
to  the  Christian  masses  of  this  period ;  the  improvement  of 
the  aristocratic  order  from  the  tenth  to  the  thirteenth  cen¬ 
tury  is  unique.  From  the  fifth  century  to  the  tenth,  history 
records  a  common  decay  of  Christian  empires  after  their 
conversion.  Vandals,  Goths,  Lombards,  and  Anglo-Saxon 
alike,  declined;  so  did  the  Franks  after  they  became  devout. 
Genseric,  Theodoric,  Charlemagne  did  not  repeat.  From 
the  tenth  century  to  the  thirteenth,  there  were  two  examples 
of  Northern  stocks,  newly  Christianized,  displaying  brilliant 
aristocratic  genius  three  centuries  apart :  in  Germany,  Henry 
and  Otto  in  the  tenth  century,  Frederick  II  and  Rudolph 
of  Hapsburg  in  the  thirteenth ;  in  Norman  and  English  stock, 
Robert  and  William  in  the  tenth  and  eleventh  centuries, 
Richard  and  Edward  in  the  thirteenth.  The  unique  factor 
which  accounts  for  this  reversal  of  historical  example  is  the 
morning-gift. 

101.  The  improvement  of  the  noble  classes,  noticeable 
from  the  tenth  to  the  thirteenth  century,  continued  without 
interruption  to  the  sixteenth.  Those  aristocratic  customs 
which  selected  brides,  regardless  of  their  own  consent,  for 
indissoluble  monogamous  marriage,  continued  for  many 
generations  to  impress  maternity  upon  cold  women  of  the 
upper  classes.1  The  result  was  a  notable  increase  in  the 
sexual  morals  of  this  class,  in  their  piety,  and  in  their 
learning. 

1  “  In  history  as  in  the  epics,  the  girls  were  all  married  young,  willingly 
or  unwillingly,  and  widows  were  not  left  time  to  weep  for  their  husbands, 
inasmuch  as  it  was  imperative  that  the  fief  should  be  managed  by  a  man; 
so  that  in  those  feudal  amours  sentiment  had  no  part.”  (Luchaire, 
Social  France  at  the  Time  of  Philip  Augustus,  Chap.  XI.) 


VOL.  I  — 13 


194  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


“The  ‘chansons  de  geste’  generally  present  the  married 
woman  as  virtuous,  very  attached,  and  devoted  to  her 
husband :  From  which  it  must  be  concluded  that  adultery 
was  uncommon  in  the  feudal  world.  ’  ’  (Luchaire,  Ibid. ,  Chap . 
XI.) 

Froissart  relates  the  story  of  the  visit  in  1 342  of  Edward 
III  to  the  Countess  of  Salisbury,  “the  most  sagest  and  fayr- 
est  lady  of  all  England,”  and  of  her  chastity  and  wit.  From 
this  visit  and  in  remembrance  of  the  purity  of  his  hostess, 
the  Order  of  the  Garter  was  instituted.  The  plebeian  ma¬ 
trons  of  Rome  exalted  wifely  chastity,  and  they  erected  an 
altar  to  the  plebeian  Pudicitia  three  hundred  years  b.c. 
The  Order  of  the  Garter,  sixteen  centuries  later  exalted  the 
same  quality  of  wifely  modesty.  It  is  interesting  to  observe, 
both  in  the  rise  of  the  plebeian  group  at  Rome,  and  the 
noble  group  in  England,  evidence  of  like  causes  having  like 
effect  on  both  groups. 

The  augmented  nervous  organization  of  the  nobility 
following  a  favorable  selection  of  mothers  is  notable.  In  an 
earlier  age,  learning  was  despised: 

“Thanks  to  St.  Bothwell,  son  of  mine, 

Save  Gawain  ne’er  could  pen  a  line.” 

Said  old  Lord  Douglas. 

The  rowdy  baron  of  the  thirteenth  century  gradually 
changed  to  the  pious,  refined,  and  sometimes  even  learned 
nobleman  of  the  sixteenth.  Here  is  Erasmus’  description 
of  noble  manners  in  his  day. 


“Oh,  strange  vicissitudes  of  human  things,”  exclaims  he. 
“Heretofore  the  heart  of  learning  was  among  such  as  pro¬ 
fessed  religion.  Now,  while  they  for  the  most  part  give 
themselves  up,  ventri  luxui  pecuniaeque ,  the  love  of  learning 
is  gone  from  them  to  secular  princes,  the  court  and  the 
nobility.  May  we  not  justly  be  ashamed  of  ourselves? 
The  feasts  of  priests  and  divines  are  drowned  in  wine,  are 


MODERN  CIVILIZATION 


195 


filled  with  scurrilous  jests,  sound  with  intemperate  noise 
and  tumult,  flow  with  spiteful  slanders  and  defamation  of 
others ;  while  at  princes’  tables  modest  disputations  are  held 
concerning  things  which  make  for  learning  and  piety.” 
(Froude,  History  of  England,  Chap.  I.) 

102.  The  landless  agricultural  class  was  least  and  last 
affected  by  the  three  factors  which  raised  the  Christian 
spirit  in  Western  Europe  after  the  tenth  century.  The  wor¬ 
ship  of  the  Virgin  Mother  might  teach  them,  as  well  as  all 
other  classes  of  society,  that  the  world’s  salvation  came  from 
virgin  purity,  made  fruitful  rather  than  sterile;  but  for  some 
centuries  this  was  the  only  one  of  these  three  factors  which 
affected  the  poor.  The  morning-gift,  a  custom  of  nobles  and 
free-men,  could  not  become  a  custom  of  the  poorest  class 
who  were  without  property  to  endow  their  virgin  brides. 
Peasant  marriage  was  seldom  anything  but  a  voluntary 
union  of  man  and  woman.  It  was  not  a  transfer  of  property 
or  muniment  of  title  to  land,  for  this  class  had  neither  pro¬ 
perty,  nor  lands.  It  is  certain  that  among  the  poor,  marriage 
was  often  preceded  by  cohabitation,  sometimes  by  the  birth 
of  children.  The  nuptial  ceremony  was  of  the  very  slightest 
character,  and  was  wholly  pagan.  In  Northern  Europe 
“handfasting”  was  the  common  form  of  wedlock  for  the 
common  people.  It  was  not  a  religious  ceremony  and  it  was 
seldom  treated  as  indissoluble.  As  late  as  the  eighteenth 
century,  it  was  still  believed  by  the  common  people  of 
England,  that  a  man  might  divorce  his  wife  by  putting  a 
halter  around  her  neck,  and  selling  her  to  another;  and  such 
divorces  from  time  to  time,  in  fact,  took  place.1 

“Holy”  matrimony,  or  the  ideal  of  marriage  as  a  relig¬ 
ious  sacrament  indissolubly  uniting  husband  and  wife,  did 
not,  in  general,  reach  the  lowest  classes  of  Europe  until  after 

1  “A  remarkable  superstition  still  prevails  among  the  lowest  of  our 
vulgar,  that  a  man  may  lawfully  sell  his  wife  to  another,  provided  he 
deliver  her  over  with  a  halter  about  her  neck.  It  is  painful  to  observe 
that  instances  of  this  frequently  occur  in  our  newspapers.”  (Brand, 
Popular  Antiquities.  Tit:  “Ring  and  Bridecake.”  Vol.  II.) 


196  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


the  Reformation,  and  after  the  landless  laborer  changed 
from  a  serf  to  a  wage-earner.  Serfs  in  general  were  under  a 
legal  disability  as  to  marriage;  although  this  must  be  taken 
to  mean  religious  marriage.  Pagan  marriage  customs,  which 
were  little  more  than  voluntary  cohabitation,  were  still 
followed.  There  is  no  description  of  peasants  or  serfs  that 
does  not  acknowledge  the  existence  of  the  relation  of  hus¬ 
band  and  wife,  parent  and  child.  Authors,  therefore,  who 
speak  of  “legal  disability  of  marrying”  among  serfs  must 
be  understood  as  intending  marriage  as  an  indissoluble 
religious  sacrament.  Undoubtedly  the  peasants  married; 
but  peasant  marriage  was  a  very  different  institution 
from  religious  marriage,  or  from  the  marriages  of  nobles  or 
freemen. 1 

103.  It  would  be  expected  then  that  between  nobles  and 
freemen,  whose  marriage  customs  impressed  maternity 
upon  cold  women,  and  peasants,  whose  marriage  was  simply 
the  voluntary  cohabitation  of  man  and  woman,  there  would 
be  a  marked  difference  of  sexual  morals;  and  that  the  im¬ 
provement  of  posterity  would  be  noticed  last  of  all  in  the 
peasant  group.  The  evidence  accords  with  the  expectation. 
A  low  class  of  serf  or  villein  was  called  boor  or  “bordar.” 
His  hut  or  dwelling  was  a  “bordel.”  In  literature  as  early 
as  1305,  in  common  speech  certainly  much  earlier,  “bordel” 
came  to  mean  a  house  of  harlots.  The  first  literary  reference 
to  it  found  by  the  New  English  Dictionary  is  in  1305.  It  is 
then  and  was  afterward  continuously  used  as  synonymous 
with  brothel,  until  that  became  finally  its  sole  signification, 
and  its  earlier  meaning  as  the  dwelling  of  a  serf  was  quite 
forgotten. 

1  “Finally,  if  the  peasant  was  a  serf — and  he  usually  was  in  most  of  the 
French  provinces  at  the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth  century, — to  all  this 
there  must  be  added  the  shame  of  servitude,  which  is  an  hereditary  blem¬ 
ish  ;  the  odious  and  humiliating  exactions,  the  legal  disability  of  marrying, 
of  moving  about,  and  of  making  wills;  and  even  then  we  have  an  inade¬ 
quate  idea  of  the  complexity  of  the  misfortunes  and  the  miseries  in  which 
the  peasants  struggled."  (Luchaire,  Social  France  at  the  Time  of  Philip 
Augustus,  Chap.  XIII.) 


MODERN  CIVILIZATION 


197 


“There  is  an  interesting  passage  in  the  treatise  of  the 
abbott  of  Aumone,  Philip  of  Harvengt,  on  the  continence  of 
clerics  in  which  he  states  the  following  fact : 

‘Last  year  several  of  our  brothers  were  sent  to  certain 
parts  of  Flanders  to  attend  to  some  of  the  business  of  our 
church.  It  was  in  summer.  They  saw  most  of  the  peasants 
walking  about  in  the  streets  and  on  the  squares  of  villages 
without  a  bit  of  clothing,  not  even  trousers,  in  order  to  keep 
cool ;  thus  naked  they  attended  to  their  business  not  in  the 
least  disturbed  at  the  glances  of  passersby  nor  by  the  pro¬ 
hibitions  of  their  mayors.  When  our  brothers  indignantly 
asked  them  why  they  went  thus  naked  like  animals  they 
answered :  ‘  What  business  is  it  of  yours  ?  You  do  not  make 
laws  for  us?”’  (Luchaire,  supra,  Chap.  XIII.) 


The  difference  between  villain  and  burgher  is  also  interest¬ 
ing.  Early  in  the  Middle  Ages,  after  the  Teutonic  invasion 
of  the  Roman  empire,  bourg  was  a  fortified  place,  a  walled 
town;  one  who  dwelt  there  was  a  burgher  or  bourgeois.  An 
unfortified  dwelling  in  the  open  country  was  a  villa;  one  who 
dwelt  there  a  villain.  In  the  beginning  therefore  these  terms 
had  no  other  meaning  than  as  a  designation  of  locale.  In  the 
course  of  centuries,  the  burgher  or  citizen — one  who  dwelt 
in  a  city — came  to  have  associations  very  different  from 
villain — one  who  dwelt  in  the  country.  The  former  might 
be  looked  down  upon  by  princes  and  nobles,  but  he  fought 
for  his  rights,  won  a  large  measure  of  liberty,  and  “stout 
burghers,”  “free  citizens,”  are  common  phrases  in  history. 
Villain,  however,  originally  descriptive  simply  of  one  who 
dwelt  and  labored  in  the  fields  or  villages,  became  finally 
associated  with  wickedness.  Villain  and  villainous  were 
terms  of  strong  reproach.  It  is  evident  that  instead  of  an 
improvement  of  posterity  in  this  class,  there  was  a  deteriora¬ 
tion;  and  that  while  first  the  aristocracy,  and  afterward  the 
merchants  and  burghers,  were  affected  by  improving  factors, 
these  did  not  reach  the  landless  agricultural  class  until  long 
afterward.  From  the  Middle  Ages  to  the  beginning  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  this  class  remained  nearly  the  same. 
The  author  of  Helene  et  Ganymede ,  a  Latin  poem  of  the 


198  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 

twelfth  century,  speaks  of  the  peasant  of  his  time  as  only  a 
species  of  cattle — “ rustici  qui  pecudes  possunt  appelari 

La  Bruyere’s  description  of  the  French  peasant  at  the  end 
of  the  seventeenth  century  is  well  known. 

“Certain  wild  animals,  male  and  female,  are  scattered 
over  the  country,  dark,  livid,  and  quite  tanned  by  the  sun, 
who  are  chained,  as  it  were,  to  the  land  they  are  always 
digging  and  turning  up  and  down  with  an  unwearied  stub¬ 
bornness;  their  voice  is  somewhat  articulate,  and  when  they 
stand  erect  they  discover  a  human  face  and,  indeed,  are 
men.  At  night  they  retire  to  their  dens,  where  they  live  on 
black  bread,  water,  and  roots;  they  spare  other  men  the 
trouble  of  sowing,  tilling  the  ground,  and  reaping  for  their 
sustenance,  and  therefore  deserve  not  to  be  in  want  of  that 
bread  they  sow  themselves.”  (Jean  de  La  Bruy  ere,  Char¬ 
acters,  XII,  128.) 

The  following  description  of  the  peasant  in  the  old  ro¬ 
mance  of  Aucassin  et  Nicolette  would  serve  equally  well  to 
describe  Millet’s  painting  “The  Man  with  the  Hoe”  in  the 
nineteenth  century. 

“He  was  large  and  marvelously  ugly  and  hideous.  He 
had  a  huge  head,  blacker  than  coal,  the  space  of  a  palm 
between  his  eyes,  large  cheeks,  a  great  flat  nose,  large  lips 
redder  than  live  coals,  long,  hideous,  and  yellow  teeth.  His 
clothing  and  shoes  were  of  cowhide,  and  a  large  cape  en¬ 
veloped  him.  He  leaned  on  a  great  club.” 

104.  Thus,  the  evidence  is  that  for  many  centuries  after 
the  perceptible  improvement  of  other  classes  of  society, 
the  landless  agricultural  peasant  continued  to  mate  and 

1  The  lowest  classes  of  mankind,  those  who  mate  naturally  and  un¬ 
ceremoniously  like  animals,  have  in  all  ages  been  called  by  the  chaster 
classes  by  the  names  of  beasts.  Livy  supposes  Larentia,  who  nursed 
Romulus  and  Remus,  had  got  the  nickname  “She-Wolf  ”  from  her  un¬ 
chaste  habits.  In  the  seventeenth  and  eigtheenth  centuries,  before  drink, 
freedom,  and  religion  had  sifted  and  improved  their  character,  English 
servant  girls  were  often  called  by  their  mistresses  “slut”  and  this  word 
is  familiar  to  readers  of  that  period  of  English  literature.  “  Hind  ”  was 
likewise  a  common  name  for  the  English  peasant.  In  America  the  same 
custom  is  still  found  in  the  phrase  “buck  nigger.” 


MODERN  CIVILIZATION 


199 


breed  naturally  like  the  beasts  of  the  field,  through  the 
voluntary  cohabitation  of  male  and  female.  Wedlock  was 
not  influenced  by  considerations  of  property  or  gain;  the 
bride  was  neither  sold  nor  endowed.  When  a  girl  reached 
the  age,  mating  and  motherhood  came  to  her  quite  as 
naturally  as  to  a  heifer,  and  she  bore  children  for  the  same 
reason  that  a  cow  has  calves.  Marriage  was  not  a  religious 
ordinance,  nor  a  title  to  property,  nor  indissoluble,  nor  the 
dedication  of  a  virgin  to  fruitfulness,  nor  the  ceremonial  of 
compulsory  motherhood.  The  moral  and  social  condition  of 
the  peasants  correspond.  Their  dwelling  was  in  common 
speech  the  abode  of  harlots,  they  went  about  in  warm 
weather  naked,  their  name  of  villain  became  synonymous 
with  wickedness,  and  for  many  centuries  during  the  rise  of 
civilization,  their  posterity  did  not  improve.  They  labored 
in  the  fields,  poor,  despised,  and  oppressed.  It  is  sometimes 
supposed  that  they  were  degraded  because  they  were  op¬ 
pressed;  the  evidence,  however,  supports  the  conclusion  that 
they  were  oppressed  because  they  were  degraded.  A  like 
group  was  found  and  studied  in  America  in  the  nineteenth 
century  by  Robert  L.  Dugdale,  who  wrote  an  account  of 
them  under  the  name  of  The  Jukes.  In  America,  land 
was  to  be  had  by  simply  settling  upon  it ;  there  was  no  rent 
to  pay,  and  hardly  any  taxes.  Feudal  exactions  did  not 
exist,  and  never  had  existed.  The  “Jukes”  took  up  land, 
built  their  dwellings,  and  enjoyed  the  perfect  freedom  of  a 
Republic,  without  princes  or  aristocracy. 

“Most  of  the  ancestors  were  squatters  upon  the  soil, 
and  in  some  instances  have  become  owners  by  tax-title  or 
by  occupancy.  They  lived  in  log  or  stone  houses  similar  to 
slave-hovels,  all  ages,  sexes,  relations  and  strangers  “bunk¬ 
ing”  indiscriminately.  One  form  of  this  bunking  has  been 
described  to  me.  During  the  winter  the  inmates  lie  on  the 
floor  strewn  with  straw  or  rushes  like  so  many  radii  to  the 
hearth,  the  embers  of  the  fire  forming  a  centre  toward  which 
their  feet  focus  for  warmth.  This  proximity,  where  not  pro¬ 
ducing  illicit  relations,  must  often  have  evolved  an  atmos¬ 
phere  of  suggestiveness  fatal  to  habits  of  chastity.  To  this 


200  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


day  some  of  the  “Jukes”  occupy  the  self-same  shanties 
built  nearly  a  century  ago.  The  essential  features  of  the 
habitat  have  remained  stationary,  and  the  social  habits 
seem  to  survive  in  conformity  to  the  persistence  of  the  domi¬ 
ciliary  environment.  I  have  seen  rude  shelters  made  of 
boughs  covered  with  sod,  or  the  refuse  slabs  of  sawmills  set 
slanting  against  ledges  of  rock  and  used  in  the  summer  as 
abodes,  the  occupants  bivouacking  much  as  gypsies.  Others 
of  the  habitations  have  two  rooms,  but  so  firmly  has  habit 
established  modes  of  living,  that,  nevertheless,  they  often 
use  but  one  congregate  dormitory.  Sometimes  I  found  an 
over-crowding  so  close  it  suggested  that  these  dwellings  were 
the  country  equivalents  of  city  tenement  houses.  Domestic¬ 
ity  is  impossible.  The  older  girls,  finding  no  privacy  within 
a  home  overrun  with  younger  brothers  and  sisters,  purchase 
privacy  at  the  risk  of  prudence,  and  the  night  rambles 
through  woods  and  tangles  end,  too  often,  in  illegitimate 
offspring.  (Dugdale,  The  Jukes,  pp.  13-14.) 

Fifty-two  percent  of  their  women  are  harlots  in  some  degree 
(p.  68).  Here  is  found  in  America,  without  any  feudal 
oppression,  almost  without  taxation,  a  group  exhibiting  the 
same  sexual  morals  as  the  mediaeval  serfs  who  gave  to  the 
words  “villain”  and  “bordel”  their  sinister  significations. 

In  free  America,  in  the  nineteenth  century,  the  results  were 
precisely  similar  to  those  of  feudal  Europe  in  the  thirteenth. 

“These  six  persons  belonged  to  a  long  lineage  reaching 
back  to  the  early  colonists,  and  had  intermarried  so  slightly 
with  the  emigrant  population  of  the  old  world  that  they 
may  be  called  a  strictly  American  family.  They  had  lived 
in  the  same  locality  for  generations,  and  were  so  despised 
by  the  reputable  community  that  their  family  name  had 
come  to  he  used  generically  as  a  term  of  reproach .”  {Ibid., 

p.  8.) 

Large  populations  in  America,  where  the  sexes  mated 
voluntarily  and  loosely,  have  been  designated  by  terms, 
which  in  their  own  neighborhood,  have  been  accepted  as 
terms  of  reproach.  Such  are  the  “Jackson  Whites”  of  New 
York  State;  the  “Pineys”  of  New  Jersey;  the  “  Poor  White 
Trash,”  “Crackers,”  and  “Hill  Billies”  of  various  southern 


MODERN  CIVILIZATION 


201 


states.  Even  where  sexual  immorality  has  not  been  preva¬ 
lent,  the  voluntary  mating  of  both  sexes,  simply  from  desire, 
and  without  property  or  other  considerations,  especially 
where  the  standard  of  living  is  low,  and  easily  attained,  has 
been  accompanied  by  persistent  mental  backwardness. 
The  kindest  descriptions  of  the  Appalachian  mountaineers 
call  them  “our  Elizabethan  contemporaries,”  indicating, 
(and  with  reason)  that,  for  three  centuries,  they  have  stood 
still.  All  these  groups  of  backward  Americans  have  en¬ 
joyed,  since  their  settlement  in  America,  complete  freedom 
from  any  of  the  oppression  which  is  usually  alleged  as  the 
cause  of  the  backwardness  of  the  European  landless  serf. 
Up  to  i860,  the  American  scale  of  state  and  national  govern¬ 
ment  expenditure  was  so  economical  that  the  small  squatter 
was  taxed  hardly  at  all.  He  paid  no  rent.  Besides  the 
actual  possession  and  enjoyment  of  free  land,  industry  and 
enterprise  would  have  made  accessible  to  him  enormous 
natural  wealth-— such  riches  as  seem  almost  limitless.  All 
that  he  had,  and  all  that  he  might  have  had  in  America, 
changed  him  in  only  one  respect.  He  did  not  grow  rich; 
he  did  not  grow  cultured;  he  did  not  display  genius,  subdue 
the  wilderness,  or  build  a  civilization ;  he  did  not  rise  in  the 
mental,  or  spiritual,  or  social  scale.  When  all  around  him 
were  advancing,  he  hung  back,  contributing  to  civilization 
nothing,  and  hardly  using  the  contributions  of  others. 
Exactions  had  forced  the  European  serf  to  ceaseless  industry 
and  thrift.  Freed  from  exactions,  his  American  counterpart 
became  idle  and  lazy.  That  was  the  only  change.  Im¬ 
provement  begins  when  capital,  wages,  and  the  factory 
system  introduce  selective  factors  other  than  fecundity.1 

1  Olmsted  thus  describes  the  white  inhabitants  of  the  turpentine 
forests  of  North  Carolina  as  they  appeared  in  1855: 

“A  family  of  these  people  will  commonly  hire,  or  ‘squat’  and  build 
a  little  log  cabin,  so  made  that  it  is  only  a  shelter  from  rain,  the  sides  not 
being  chinked,  and  having  no  more  furniture  or  pretension  to  comfort 
than  is  commonly  provided  a  criminal  in  the  cell  of  a  prison.  They  will 
cultivate  a  little  com,  and  possibly  a  few  roods  of  potatoes,  cow-peas 
and  coleworts.  They  will  own  a  few  swine,  that  find  their  living  in  the 


202  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


105.  The  rise  of  Order  in  society,  and  the  view  univers¬ 
ally  accepted,  for  many  centuries,  as  to  the  superiority  of 
the  upper  over  the  lower  orders,  is  easily  accounted  for  on 
the  evidence  of  history.  In  all  parts  of  the  earth,  among  all 
races,  and  at  all  times,  if  there  were  found  a  group  which 
impressed  maternity  upon  its  cold  women  it  advanced  and 
improved.  If  such  a  group  had  near  neighbors  whose 
marriage  customs  were  looser,  and  who  mated  voluntarily, 
so  that  only  ardent  women  were  mothers,  then  invariably 
it  would  be  found  that  this  first  group  became  an  aristocracy 
wielding  moral  and  material  power  over  the  more  numerous, 
more  prolific,  and  poorer  neighbors  whom  they  oppressed, 
despised,  enslaved,  and  ruled.  In  this  aristocratic  group 
the  women  unquestionably  were  very  strictly  ruled  by  their 
fathers  and  their  husbands;  but  nevertheless,  they  looked 
down  upon  looser  women,  who  mated  and  bore  offspring  at 
will,  just  as  their  sons  looked  down  upon  and  ruled  those 
offspring.  This  phenomenon  has  been  repeated  as  often  as 
mankind  has  advanced  towards  civilization. 

“And  Rebekah  said  to  Isaac,  I  am  weary  of  my  life  be¬ 
cause  of  the  daughters  of  Heth:  if  Jacob  take  a  wife  of  the 
daughters  of  Heth,  such  as  these  which  are  of  the  daughters 
of  the  land,  what  good  shall  my  life  do  me?”  (Genesis, 
XXVII,  46.) 

forest;  and  pretty  certainly,  also,  a  rifle  and  dogs;  and  the  men,  ostensi¬ 
bly,  occupy  most  of  their  time  in  hunting. 

“A  gentleman  of  Fayetteville  told  me  that  he  had,  several  times  ap¬ 
praised,  under  oath,  the  whole  household  property  of  families  of  this 
class  at  less  than  $20.  If  they  have  need  of  money  to  purchase  cloth¬ 
ing,  etc.,  they  obtain  it  by  selling  their  game  or  meal.  If  they  have  none 
of  this  to  spare,  or  an  insufficiency,  they  will  work  for  a  neighboring 
farmer  for  a  few  days,  and  they  usually  get  for  their  labor  fifty  cents  a 
day ,  finding  themselves.  The  farmers  say  that  they  do  not  like  to  employ 
them,  because  they  cannot  be  relied  upon  to  finish  what  they  undertake, 
or  to  work  according  to  direction;  and  because,  being  white  men,  they 
cannot  “  drive”  them.  That  is  to  say,  their  labor  is  even  more  inefficient 
and  unmanageable  than  that  of  slaves.”  A  Journey  in  the  Seaboard 
Slave  States  (1855)  Chap.  V. 

These  descendants  of  the  white  races  of  Northern  Europe  occupied  a 


MODERN  CIVILIZATION 


203 


So  Penelope  must  have  felt  towards  the  nymphs  and  their 
offspring  who  wandered  the  country  in  Bacchus’  train.  So, 
undoubtedly,  felt  a  stern  Roman  matron  of  the  patrician 
order  towards  women  and  their  offspring  of  the  proletariat. 
So,  doubtless,  felt  plebeian  matrons,  after  aristocratic  mar¬ 
riage  customs  had  raised  them  to  power,  towards  the  Greek 
and  Syrian  women  who  flocked  to  Rome  when  the  former 
plebeians  began  to  rule.  So,  undoubtedly  felt  the  chaste 
Countess  of  Salisbury  towards  that  order  of  society  whose 
dwelling  place  was,  in  her  century,  known  as  a  house  of 
harlots.  In  America,  in  the  nineteenth  century,  respectable 
women,  descended  from  stricter  marriage  customs,  looked 
down  with  loathing  and  contempt  upon  the  “Jukes.” 

In  all  these  centuries,  nothing  was  changed  but  the  numer¬ 
ical  proportions  of  the  different  classes.  If  everything  else 
is  equal,  and  fecundity  is  the  chief  factor  of  survival,  poster¬ 
ity  will  descend  from  the  most  prolific  women.  If  the  im¬ 
portance  of  fecundity  diminishes,  and  other  factors,  indus¬ 
try,  thrift,  sobriety,  energy,  and  intelligence  increase,  poster¬ 
ity  no  longer  descends  only  from  the  most  prolific,  but  de¬ 
scends  partly  from  those  possessed  of  these  other  qualities. 
This  change  may  take  place  in  groups,  regardless  of  their 
previous  condition,  or  present  wealth,  or  poverty.  A  poor 
and  plebeian  group  may,  for  this  cause,  overtake  and  dis¬ 
place  one  rich  and  aristocratic.  This  occurred  in  pagan 

free  country  where  they  were  not  oppressed  by  feudal  exactions  or  im¬ 
poverished  by  landlordism,  capitalism  or  “  unearned  increment.”  They 
paid  no  rent  and  almost  no  taxes.  They  tilled  a  virgin  soil  and  they  were 
suffered  to  retain  the  entire  product  of  their  own  labor.  Yet  they  pro¬ 
duced  so  little,  although  they  consumed  almost  nothing,  that  the  entire 
wealth  acquired  and  accumulated  by  the  labor  of  generations  amounted 
to  no  more  than  twenty  dollars.  Those  who  suppose  that  all  wealth  is 
the  product  of  labor  will  do  well  to  ponder  these  facts.  This  American 
example  illustrates  again  the  truth  taught  by  the  history  of  every  race 
and  of  every  age,  viz.:  that  wealth  is  produced  by  augmented  nervous 
organizations.  The  same  land  that  is  desperately  poor  when  inhabited 
by  lower  nervous  organizations  becomes  rich  when  it  is  inhabited  by 
higher  nervous  organizations  and  poor  again  when  their  nervous  organ¬ 
izations  decline.  No  other  economic  truth  is  more  stable  than  this. 


204  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


Rome  when  the  plebeians  ousted  the  old  patrician  order; 
again  in  the  Christian  empire  during  the  first  three  centur¬ 
ies,  when  the  Christians  rose  to  power  and  ousted  their 
pagan  oppressors;  and  for  the  third  time,  in  the  period  from 
the  sixteenth  to  the  eighteenth  century,  when  the  common 
people  of  France  overcame  the  hereditary  aristocratic  order. 
Each  time  that  this  took  place  it  was  due  to  the  adoption  by 
the  poorer,  but  rising,  group  of  those  marriage  customs 
which  impress  maternity  upon  their  colder  women.  If,  at 
the  same  time,  the  rich  and  aristocratic  group  indulged  a 
sexual  laxity  which  enabled  their  cold  women  to  escape 
maternity,  their  eclipse  was  as  complete  as  that  in  both  the 
Roman  examples  given  above.  If  the  marriage  customs  of 
both  groups  were  amalgamated  and  became  the  same,  the 
result  was  not  an  eclipse  of  the  first  by  the  second,  but  an 
equality  between  the  two  groups,  such  as  exists  at  present  in 
England  and  America.  It  is  noticeable,  also,  that  any  part 
of  the  plebeian  group  which  failed  to  adopt  those  marriage 
customs  which  improved  the  selection  of  mothers,  did  not 
advance  with  the  rest.  They  stayed  behind,  like  the 
“Jukes”  and  “Crackers”;  and,  in  a  generation  or  so,  the 
group  of  improving  plebeians  looked  down  upon  them  with 
aristocratic  contempt.1 

*  Contemporaneous  views  of  "democracy’'  are  always  founded  upon 
the  numerical  proportion  which  the  group  of  prolific  women  of  loose  sex¬ 
ual  morals  bears  to  the  population  as  a  whole.  Where  this  group  is  as 
small  as  the  "Jukes"  in  nineteenth  century  America,  and  strict  marriage 
customs  are  general  throughout  the  mass  of  the  population,  there  will 
arise  a  general  belief  in  the  advantages  of  democracy,  which  it  is  con¬ 
sidered  unreasonable  and  almost  impious  to  question.  But  it  is  neces¬ 
sary  to  go  back  only  a  few  centuries  in  the  history  of  the  same  English 
speaking  race  to  find  these  numerical  proport  ions  reversed .  The  *  ‘  J ukes '  ’ 
greatly  outnumber  the  moral,  industrious  and  provident  classes  of  the 
population.  Accordingly  in  that  age  there  was  the  same  unquestionable 
belief  in  the  advantages  of  government  by  quality  instead  of  numbers. 
The  same  changes  are  observable  in  Greece  and  Rome.  Men  who  look 
neither  backward  nor  forward,  but  view  society  only  as  a  plane  of  two 
dimensions,  must  derive  their  views  only  from  the  plane  they  see,  i.e., 
their  own  contemporaries. 


MODERN  CIVILIZATION 


205 


106.  From  the  tenth  century  to  the  thirteenth,  the 
social  classifications  of  Western  Christendom  must  be 
viewed  solely  in  their  relation  to  the  soil.  There  were  no 
large  towns,  no  factories,  no  artisans,  no  industries  where 
wealth  was  produced  on  a  scale  sufficient  to  offer  daily  sup¬ 
port,  and  inheritable  accumulation,  to  any  large  number  of 
landless  persons.  There  was  little  commerce,  and  most  of 
this  was  through  the  Mediterranean  ports  of  Venice  and 
Genoa.  Trade  with  the  South  was  not  alone  in  the  products 
peculiar  to  a  southern  climate,  but  included  manufactured 
goods,  for  which  rustic  Christendom  was  dependent  upon 
urban  Islam.  Damascus  steel,  Toledo  blades,  Morocco 
leather,  and  various  other  names  of  this  period  testify  to  the 
Moslem  monopoly  in  skilled  manufactures. 1 

Some  allodial  tenures  existed  in  Provence,  and  doubtless 
in  parts  of  Spain.  Languedoc  was  not  yet  a  part  of  France. 
But  for  most  of  feudal  Europe  at  this  period  the  classifica¬ 
tions  of  society,  and  their  relation  to  the  soil,  were  simple. 
There  were  two  classes.  Prolific  villeins  who  worked  and 
tilled  the  soil,  and  the  nobles,  landlords,  or  seigniors  who 
owned  it. 

In  the  thirteenth  century  there  began  the  rise  of  large 
towns,  factories,  industries,  and  commerce,  and  the  various 
elements  of  urban  activity  that  bring  bread  to  a  multitude 
which  has  neither  sown  nor  reaped. 2  A  new  class  of  society 

1  As  late  as  the  seventeenth  century  Myles  Slandish  fought  the 
savages  in  the  Massachusetts  wilderness, 

“  Clad  in  doublet  and  hose,  and  boots  of  Cordovan  leather, 

Cutlass  and  corselet  of  steel,  and  his  trusty  sword  of  Damascus." 

(Longfellow,  The  Courtship  of  Myles  Standish.) 

2  “  It  was  the  thirteenth  century,  moreover,  that  saw  the  great  devel¬ 
opment  of  the  manufacturing  and  trading  cities  north  of  the  Alps. 
Down  to  the  expulsion  of  the  Christians  from  Palestine,  at  the  close  of 
the  twelfth  century,  there  had  been  few  cities  in  Europe  of  wealth  and 
importance  outside  Italy  and  the  South  of  France  and  of  Spain.  But  the 
next  hundred  years  founded  the  greatness  of  cities  like  Paris  and  London, 
of  Troyes,  Rouen,  Lyons,  Bordeaux,  Bruges,  Ghent,  Cologne,  Stras- 
burg,  Basle,  Nuremberg,  Bremen,  Lubeck,  Hamburg,  Dantzic,  Win¬ 
chester,  Norwich,  Exeter,  Bristol.  The  Crusades  had  brought  Europe 


206  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


came  into  being,  different  from  both  the  existing  classes, 
because : 

a.  It  had  no  relation  with  the  soil,  except  as  the  pur¬ 
chaser  or  consumer  of  food ; 

b.  As  it  was  severed  from  the  soil,  it  had  no  inherited 
source  of  food.  It  could  not  produce  bread.  To  live,  it  had 
to  buy  or  exchange  something  for  it. 

c.  It  had  no  inherited  wealth,  but  was  obliged  to  find  or 
to  create  and  to  accumulate  whatever  it  transmitted  to  its 
descendants. 

d.  Since  it  did  not  till  the  soil,  it  resembled  the  old 
aristocratic  class.  But  the  aristocrats  owned  the  soil,  and 
compelled  their  serfs  to  till  it;  the  new  class  owned  neither 
soil  nor  serfs. 

e.  As  it  was  without  land,  and  must  labor  to  live,  it 
resembled  the  landless  serfs.  But,  again,  the  serfs  were 
chained  to  the  soil  and,  to  get  bread,  were  obliged  to  till  it ; 
the  new  class  was  free  and  might  get  bread  by  purchase  or 
exchange. 

107.  Here  then  was  a  “middle  class” — something  be¬ 
tween  the  noble  and  the  serf,  and  sharing  in  some  degree  the 
advantages  and  disadvantages  of  both  those  classes.  More¬ 
over  it  was  recruited  from  both.  Enterprising  and  energetic 
peasants,  escaping  their  bondage,  began,  at  this  time,  to 
forsake  agriculture  for  industry  and  commerce. 

“The  fugitive  bondsmen  found  freedom  in  a  flight  to 
chartered  towns,  where  a  residence  during  a  year  and  a  day 
conferred  franchise.”  (Green,  Short  History  of  the  English 
People ,  Chap.  V,  Sec.  IV.) 

Luchaire  quotes  from  the  lay,  Aiol: 


together,  and  had  brought  the  West  face  to  face  with  the  East.  Man¬ 
kind  had  ceased  to  be  ascriptus  glebce,  locally  bound  to  a  few  clearings 
on  the  earth.  It  had  begun  to  understand  the  breadth  and  variety  of  the 
planet,  and  the  infinite  resources  of  its  products.  Industrial  exchange 
on  a  world- wide  scale  began  again  after  a  long  interval  of  ten  centuries." 
(Frederick  Harrison,  A  Survey  of  the  Thirteenth  Century .) 


MODERN  CIVILIZATION 


207 


“Dame  Hersent,  wife  of  a  butcher  of  Orleans,  a  woman 
with  a  large  paunch,  was  a  slanderer.  Both  were  natives 
of  Burgundy.  When  they  came  to  the  great  city  of  Orleans 
they  did  not  have  five  sous.  They  were  wretched,  begging, 
weeping,  dying  of  hunger;  but  by  their  thrift,  they  profited 
so  much  through  usury  that  in  five  years  they  had  amassed 
a  fortune.  They  had  two-thirds  of  the  town  under  mort¬ 
gage;  everywhere  they  purchased  ovens  and  mills,  and  dis¬ 
placed  honest  men.”  (Luchaire,  Social  France  in  the  Reign 
of  Philip  Augustus ,  Chap.  XIII.) 

This  is  one  of  the  earliest  accounts  of  the  rise,  and  com¬ 
plaints  of  the  greed,  of  capitalists.  In  this  early  period, 
burghers  or  townsmen  were  esteemed  little  better  than  serfs. 
“In  the  eyes  of  the  lords,  a  burgher  could  only  be  a  drunk¬ 
ard,  a  thief,  and  a  usurer.”  Beginning  as  the  moral  and 
social  equal  of  the  villein ,  it  is  plain  that  the  burghers  per¬ 
sistently  improved,  while  the  villein  did  not. 

After  a  while,  the  towns  were  not  recruited  from  the 
peasant  class  alone.  The  law  of  primogeniture  left  the 
landed  inheritance  of  the  nobles  to  the  eldest  son.  Younger 
brothers  and  younger  sons  of  younger  brothers  were  left 
in  the  anomalous  position  of  the  “middle  class,”  i.e.,  they 
were  without  any  relation  to  the  soil.  They  neither  owned 
land  nor  did  they  till  it.  They  were  neither  seigniors,  nor 
serfs.  Many  of  them  became  professional  fighting  men, 
knights  at  arms,  taking  service  under  the  best  bidder.  The 
Church  received  noble  descendants  of  both  sexes.  But,  after 
the  thirteenth  century,  some  proportion  of  landless  men  and 
women  of  noble  descent  inevitably  went  to  the  towns.  The 
“middle  class”  became  truly  a  middle  class  between  the 
noble  and  the  serf.  It  received  recruits  from  both  the  other 
classes  and  both  in  turn  recruited  from  it.  Burghers  who 
were  pressed  by  poverty  perished  or  returned  to  agriculture 
and  became  peasants.  Burghers  as  they  rose  to  wealth 
acquired  lands,  seigniories  and  fiefs. 

The  wealthy  nobility  of  Venice,  composed  of  successful 
merchants  and  adventurers,  was  already  the  oldest  in 
Europe.  After  the  tenth  century,  great  merchants  in  other 


208  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


Italian  cities  acquired  a  wealth  and  power  which  enabled 
them  to  treat  with  sovereigns  on  equal  terms,  to  marry  their 
daughters  to  the  proudest  of  the  territorial  nobility,  and, 
themselves,  to  maintain  a  state  and  magnificence  celebrated 
throughout  Europe.  By  the  sixteenth  century,  the  burghers 
in  the  Netherlands  were  a  sovereign  power,  making  war, 
alliances,  and  peace.  In  England,  in  this  century,  Sir 
Thomas  Kitson  “mercer  of  London,  ”  built  the  magnificent 
Hengrave  Hall,  in  Suffolk,  and  he  “was  one  of  many  of  the 
rising  merchants  who  were  now  able  to  root  themselves  on 
the  land  by  the  side  of  the  Norman  nobility,  first  to  rival 
and  then  slowly  to  displace  them.”  (Froude’s  History  of 
England ,  Vol.  I,  Chap.  I.) 

108.  The  rise  of  the  towns,  and  of  a  middle  class  which 
had  no  relations  to  the  soil,  had  certain  marked  results: 

A.  In  the  towns  themselves  a  considerable  premium  was 
put  upon  brains.  With  the  two  classes  which  had  relations 
to  the  soil,  the  chief  factor  in  livelihood  was  their  status. 
If  the  landlord  owned  much  soil,  he  was  well  fed,  whether  he 
had  brains  or  not.  The  serf  who  suffered  heavy  feudal 
exactions,  or  paid  heavy  rents  or  taxes,  was  poor  because  of 
his  status  as  a  serf.  The  mental  qualities  of  the  landlord  or 
of  the  serf  had  little  to  do  with  their  respective  comforts  in 
life  as  individuals  or  with  the  survival  of  their  groups. 

In  the  towns,  conditions  were  quite  different.  No  one 
owned  the  soil,  tilled  it,  sowed  or  reaped;  yet  certain  towns¬ 
men  were  rich,  well  fed,  well  housed,  comfortable,  envied, 
and  treated  with  respect;  while  others  were  poor,  hungry, 
squalid,  miserable,  dirty,  and  reduced  to  beggary.  Between 
the  two  extremes  a  large  and  everchanging  number  filled  all 
the  gradations  of  human  condition  from  wealth  to  want. 
The  noticeable  difference  between  the  social  condition  of  this 
“middle  class”  and  of  the  two  classes  which  preceded  it, 
was  that  nobles  and  serfs  inherited  their  status ;  whereas  the 
middle  class,  after  the  rise  of  towns  in  the  thirteenth  century, 
inherited  no  status  at  all.  Each  group  of  the  middle  class 
found  its  own  level.  Its  resemblance  to  the  older  classes 


MODERN  CIVILIZATION 


209 


was  in  this:  that  just  as  nobles  tended  to  inter-marry,  and 
serfs  tended  to  inter-marry,  so  each  group  of  the  middle 
class  tended  to  marry  within  itself.  The  wealthy  middle 
class  did  not  marry  with  the  poor  middle  class,  or  vice 
versa. 

B.  The  rise  of  towns  had,  likewise,  a  marked  effect  on 
the  landless  agricultural  class.  The  number  of  persons  in¬ 
creased  who  were  obliged  to  obtain  bread  by  exchange,  and 
not  by  labor.  Agricultural  produce  began  to  have  a  “price.” 
As  long  as  human  society  was  composed  only  of  two  classes, 
those  who  owned  the  soil  and  those  who  tilled  it,  the  produce 
of  the  soil  was  not  a  saleable  commodity.  The  serfs  were 
bound  to  cultivate  the  lord’s  fields,  to  garner  the  lord’s  grain, 
and  to  perform  other  base  services.  The  distinction  grew  up 
between  base  service,  and  knight  service,  the  former  mean¬ 
ing  the  labor  done  by  serfs,  and  the  latter  the  service  done 
by  knights.  Under  this  feudal  arrangement  no  money 
passed  at  all.  Food  was  grown  and  eaten,  but  was  not 
bought  and  sold. 

When  the  towns  made  a  market  for  agricultural  produce, 
it  was  possible  for  a  new  relation  to  grow  up  between  land¬ 
lord  and  serf.  No  matter  how  small  the  price  was,  the  serf 
who  could  get  money  for  his  fowls,  or  bacon,  or  bullocks,  or 
grain,  was  in  a  position  to  drive  a  bargain.  If  he  worked 
hard,  denied  himself,  got  all  the  money  he  could,  spent  none 
of  it,  saved  and  skimped,  he  was  able  to  pay  his  landlord  a 
money  rent,  instead  of  performing  base  service  on  his  lord’s 
lands.  With  a  fixed  money  rent,  his  condition  might  im¬ 
prove.  While  there  were  only  two  classes  of  society,  the 
serfs  could  never  grow  “rich.”  Everything  that  the  serf 
had  was  perishable;  nothing  had  a  money  value;  any  in¬ 
crease  in  his  crops  or  live-stock  could  not  escape  the  land¬ 
lord’s  eye;  and  his  obligation  to  do  base  service  was  peren¬ 
nial.  This  third  and  landless  class  of  society,  which  created 
for  the  serfs  a  “market”  for  their  animals  and  grain,  and 
paid  money  for  food,  gave  to  the  individual  serf,  and  es¬ 
pecially  to  every  improving  group  of  serfs,  a  sure  emancipa- 


VOL.  I — 14 


2io  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


tion.  They  could  sell  their  produce  in  the  market,  money 
could  be  hidden  and  accumulated.  Landlords  were  extrava¬ 
gant,  unthrifty,  avaricious,  and  always  needing  money. 
To  accumulate  money,  and  to  make  a  bargain  with  the  land¬ 
lord,  were  the  opportunities  now  offered  the  serf  to  better 
his  condition.  Life,  which  for  him  had  been  only  labor,  had 
become  partly  labor  and  partly  contracts.  He  made  con¬ 
tracts  of  sale  with  the  townsmen;  his  relations  to  his  land¬ 
lord  were  changed  from  status  to  contract;  and  if  his  out¬ 
put  in  money  were  something  less  than  his  income,  he  began, 
for  the  first  time,  to  experience  that  which  never  existed 
under  the  simple  classification  of  feudal  society — profit.1 

109.  The  changes  from  the  earlier  and  simple  classifica¬ 
tion  of  society  into  landlords  and  serfs,  wrought  in  society 
by  the  rise  of  the  towns,  and  which  are  in  evidence  in  the 
sixteenth  century,  are,  therefore,  these: 

The  formation  of : 

I.  A  landlord  class,  partly  inheriting  its  lands  from  the 
old  nobility,  partly  recruited  from  the  new  wealth  acquired 
by  burghers,  letting  its  lands  for  a  money  rent,  instead  of 
for  the  knight  service  and  base  service  of  feudal  times; 

II.  A  yeomanry,  having  no  lands  of  its  own,  but  renting 
from  the  landlord  for  a  money  rent,  and  freed  of  villeinage, 
serfdom,  or  base  service.  This  class  was  descended  from 
serfs  who  rose  to  freemen; 

III.  Townsmen  who  had  left  the  soil  to  engage  in  trade 
and  industry; 

IV.  A  class  of  agricultural  laborers  still  leading  a  life 
not  very  different  from  serfdom.  They  worked  for  a  bare 
existence,  whether  paid  in  wages  or  in  kind,  and,  if  not 
chained  to  the  soil,  at  least  they  did  not  leave  it. 

The  first  three  of  these  classes  were  continuously  recruited 
from  the  fourth.  Every  laborer’s  son  of  unusual  ability, 
enterprise,  or  ambition,  ran  away  from  the  soil  to  seek  his 
fortune  at  sea,  in  arms,  or  in  the  towns.  The  result  was 
that  the  upper  class  were  necessarily  and  continuously 

1  The  change  is  described  and  dated  by  Green,  Chap.  V,  Sect.  IV. 


MODERN  CIVILIZATION 


2X1 


recruited  from  the  best  individuals  of  the  lowest  class ;  and 
of  that  class  there  remains  on  the  soil  only  an  average  which 
is  kept  low  by  perennial  skimming.  The  so-called  “middle 
class”  received  in  the  first  instance  all  these  recruits;  as  it 
received  also  recruits  from  the  landlord  class.  In  the  towns, 
all  these  newcomers  from  above  and  from  below,  were 
again  impartially  sifted  by  temptation  and  competition  for 
qualities  which  enabled  them  to  survive.  The  “middle 
class,”  therefore,  constituted  a  peculiar  and  everchanging 
group,  always  losing  its  most  successful  members  as  they 
were  translated  into  landlords  and  nobles,  while,  at  the  same 
time,  it  continuously  received  the  younger  sons  of  this  upper 
class,  and  all  the  more  enterprising  members  of  the  lower 
class. 

This  group,  however,  was  not  greatly  changed  by  its 
recruits.  It  extended  to  them  no  helping  hand,  but  bade 
each  to  struggle  for  himself ;  and  most  failed.  The  survivors 
increased  its  number  without  changing  its  character.  Be¬ 
ginning  in  the  thirteenth  century,  without  customs,  tradi¬ 
tions,  or  wealth,  the  “middle  class”  gradually  acquired  all 
three.  In  the  period  before  the  thirteenth  century,  the 
brilliant  figures  of  European  history  appeared  only  among 
the  landowners — the  nobles,  seigniors,  and  holders  of  fiefs. 
After  the  thirteenth  century,  this  was  no  longer  true.  The 
rise  of  learning,  freedom,  industry,  discovery,  exploration, 
commerce,  and  wealth,  was  due,  as  might  be  expected,  to 
that  class  which,  having  created  the  towns  and  cities  of 
western  Europe,  received,  tested,  and  absorbed  the  restless 
descendants  of  the  classes  which  inherited  relations  with  the 
soil. 


CHAPTER  XI 


MODERN  CIVILIZATION  FROM  THE  l6TH  TO  THE  I9TH  CENTURY 

no.  When  in  the  fifteenth  century,  Constantinople  was 
taken  by  the  Turks,  there  was  extinguished  the  last  group  of 
Christians  who  could  claim  a  continuous  and  uninterrupted 
Christian  worship  from  the  fourth  century.  Every  other 
land  or  city  (including  Rome  itself)  which  had  been  Chris¬ 
tian  in  that  century,  had  since  been  invaded  and  repeopled 
once  or  more — its  blood,  language,  and  customs,  the  names 
of  its  rivers,  lakes,  seas,  and  hills,  completely  changed. 
It  has  been  pointed  out  that  the  rise  of  civilization  up  to  the 
fifteenth  century,  followed  geographical  lines.  Civilization 
rose  in  the  Western  Church,  where  the  complete  change  and 
repeopling  of  lands  took  place,  and  did  not  rise  in  the 
Eastern  Church.  After  the  fall  of  Constantinople,  a  like 
geographical  division  may  still  be  observed.  The  largest 
body  of  Christians  still  adhering  to  the  Greek  Church  were 
the  vast  population  of  Russia.  This  body  of  Christians, 
adhering  to  the  ancient  calendar,  untouched  by  the  Teutonic 
invasion,  and  insensible  of  the  heresies,  religious  wars,  and 
Reformation  of  the  Western  Church,  remained  as  backward 
as  before.  The  Tartar  inundation  receded,  leaving  their 
Christian  worship  for  three  centuries  undisturbed.  But  the 
Russian  Church  continued  unreformed;  the  Russian  Chris¬ 
tians  still  worshipped  images. 

The  sixteenth  century,  then,  did  not  change  the  geo¬ 
graphical  lines  which  marked  the  rise  of  civilization  between 
the  Western  and  the  Eastern  Church.  But  new  geographical 
divisions  began  in  the  west.  The  Reformation  divided  west¬ 
ern  Christianity.  Where  it  succeeded,  religious  sterilization 


212 


MODERN  CIVILIZATION 


213 

and  the  worship  of  images  ceased.  Where  it  failed,  they 
continued. 

It  is  desirable  to  set  down  certain  aspects  of  the  Reforma¬ 
tion,  for  the  better  understanding  both  of  its  causes  and  of 
its  effects. 

In  respect  to  its  timeliness,  it  may  be  observed  that 
it  was  the  fourth  considerable  revolt  against  the  Roman 
papacy,  but  the  first  to  achieve  permanent  success  over 
several  extensive  states.  There  had  been  earlier  revolts  of 
the  Albigenses  in  Languedoc  in  the  twelfth  century ;  of  the 
Hussites  in  Bohemia  in  the  fourteenth  century;  and  of 
Wyclif  and  the  Lollards  in  England  in  the  same  century. 
Each  of  these  was  stamped  out.  The  first  utterly;  the 
Hussites  effectually;  the  Lollards  only  superficially,  for 
Lollardism  continued  in  some  degree  till  England  became 
Protestant.  The  failures  of  Huss  and  Wyclif  in  the  four¬ 
teenth  century,  and  the  success  of  Luther  in  the  sixteenth, 
can  hardly  be  attributed  to  the  superiority  of  the  leadership 
of  the  latter.  In  comparison  with  his  predecessors  he  was 
not  a  superior  man.  There  is  great  reason,  however,  to 
attribute  Luther’s  success  to  a  marked  change  in  Christian 
society  itself,  accomplished  between  the  fourteenth  and  the 
sixteenth  century.  In  this  period,  six  more  generations  had 
felt  the  cumulative  effect  of  a  favorable  selection  of  mothers, 
through  the  morning-gift,  the  worship  of  the  Virgin  Mother 
and  the  sacrament  of  “  holy”  matrimony.  The  rise  of  towns 
had  produced  that  “middle  class”  which,  having  no  inherit¬ 
able  relation  with  the  soil,  was  obliged  by  trade  and  com¬ 
merce  (that  is  by  contracts)  to  obtain  its  bread.  When 
Huss  and  Wyclif  preached,  this  class  was  extremely  small. 
When  Luther  preached,  its  numbers  had  greatly  increased. 
In  the  fourteenth  century,  it  was  but  newly  recruited  from 
the  serfs.  By  the  sixteenth  century,  some  of  its  membership 
had  been  improved  by  two  centuries  of  selective  influences 
highly  favorable  to  the  reproduction  of  cold  women.  The 
Reformation  of  the  sixteenth  century,  therefore,  was  cer¬ 
tainly  aided,  probably  caused,  by  timely  influences. 


2 1 4  THE  PHILO  SOPH  Y  OF  Cl  VI LIZ  A  TION 


It  did  not  occur  until  after  the  Western  Church  had  recog¬ 
nized  and  proclaimed  “holy”  matrimony  as  a  sacrament. 

It  did  not  occur  until  after  the  rise  of  towns  had  created  a 
numerous  and  influential  ‘  ‘middle  class’  ’  of  western  Christians. 

It  was  most  successful  in  the  lands  and  peoples  which 
were  Christianized  last  of  all ;  whose  superior  pagan  marriage 
customs  had  been  least  impaired  by  the  religious  steriliza¬ 
tion  of  the  early  Church;  who  had  long  practiced  the  Teu¬ 
tonic  custom  of  morning-gift ;  and  who  had  a  considerable 
urban  population. 

hi.  Evidence  of  the  foregoing  may  be  found  in  the  fact 
that  the  Reformation  failed  in  Ireland  and  Poland — where 
there  were  few  towns,  and  the  population  was  composed 
chiefly  of  landlords  and  serfs;  and  where  Teutonic  invasion 
never  imposed  Teutonic  customs.  It  failed  in  Spain, 
where  large  cities  had  been  Moslem  and  had  been  ruined  by 
the  expulsion  of  the  Moors;  where,  likewise,  there  had  not 
been  Teutonic  invasion  since  those  of  the  Suevi  and  the 
Vandals,  and  where  Teutonic  custom  was  unknown.  It 
failed  in  Italy,  where  the  towns  had  begun  to  decay,  and 
where  there  were  strong  selfish  motives  for  preserving  the 
power,  authority,  and  wealth  of  the  Roman  Church. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  Reformation  succeeded  in  the 
Scandinavian  countries,  Christianized  in  comparatively  re¬ 
cent  centuries,  and  whose  pagan  marriage  customs  had 
enforced  a  favorable  selection  of  mothers.  It  succeeded 
brilliantly  in  the  Low  Countries  where  every  thing  was 
favorable:  a  late  conversion  to  Christianity,  Teutonic  mar¬ 
riage  customs,  and  large  urban  populations.  It  succeeded 
likewise  in  England,  where  conditions  were  about  equally 
favorable.  The  religious  sterilization  of  English  women, 
moreover,  had  been  effectually  prevented  for  about  three 
centuries  following  the  Norman  conquest.  The  Lollardism 
of  the  fourteenth  century  had  never  wholly  died  out. 

In  Germany,  where  Luther  preached,  the  Reformation 
was  most  successful  in  those  states  which  were  last  to  be 
Christianized,  and  which  had  never  been  provinces  of  the 


MODERN  CIVILIZATION 


215 


Roman  Empire.  Along  the  Rhine  and  the  Danube,  where 
religious  sterilization  had  long  exercised  an  adverse  influ¬ 
ence  on  the  selection  of  mothers,  the  German  speaking 
people  did  not  turn  from  the  worship  of  images.  In  each 
instance,  it  is  apparent  that  the  Reformation  succeeded 
where  religious  sterilization  had  impaired  the  selection  of 
mothers  for  the  shortest  time;  and  had  been  best  counter¬ 
acted  for  the  longest  time  by  marriage  customs  which  made 
obedience,  piety,  chastity,  and  virginity,  fruitful. 

1 12.  The  success  of  the  Reformation  in  some  of  the 
European  states  was  swift,  and  the  issue  never  afterward  in 
doubt.  The  failure  of  the  Reformation  in  others  was 
equally  swift,  and  equally  certain.  For  more  than  a  cen¬ 
tury,  France  continued  to  be  debatable  ground;  and,  in 
Germany,  the  line  between  Papist  and  Protestant  states, 
was  not  finally  drawn  till  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth 
century.  “The  geographical  frontier  between  the  two  re¬ 
ligions,”  says  Macaulay,  “has  continued  to  run  almost 
precisely  where  it  ran  at  the  close  of  the  Thirty  Years’ 
War.”  (1648.)  {Essay  on  Von  Ranke.)  After  this  line  was 
drawn,  there  was,  on  each  side  of  it,  a  somewhat  different 
selection  of  mothers  whereby  posterity  would  be  affected. 

I.  That  side  which  was  still  Papist  preserved  the  re¬ 
ligious  ideals  which  had  been  attained  by  the  sixteenth 
century.  Marriage  was  a  sacrament  of  the  Church,  which 
the  Church  performed,  approved,  blessed,  and  forbade  pro¬ 
fane  hands  to  dissolve;  it  was  ordained  by  Heaven,  accept¬ 
able  to  God,  and  the  Church  applauded  parents  who  gave 
their  virgin  daughters  to  “holy”  matrimony.  With  this 
great  change  in  the  Church’s  attitude  toward  marriage,  it 
sought  to  preserve  in  some  degree  the  old  approval  and 
sanction  of  sterility.  The  Roman  clergy  continued  to  set 
the  example  of  celibacy;  and  religious  orders  and  houses 
continually  reminded  the  faithful  that  extreme  piety,  and 
exclusive  devotion  to  a  life  of  good  works,  must  be  cloistered 
and  sterile.  So  in  the  Roman  communion,  on  the  whole, 
nothing  which  had  been  gained  by  the  sixteenth  century, 


2 1 6  THE  PHILO  SOPH  Y  OF  Cl  VI LIZ A  TION 


was  lost.  Further  gains  were  definitely  slowed  up  by 
preserving  the  religious  ideal  of  saintly  sterility. 

II.  Protestants  repudiated  the  ideal  of  religious  steril¬ 
ization  altogether.  Many  eminent  ones  at  the  beginning 
decried  the  religious  sanctity  of  marriage  and  spoke  of  it  as 
a  profane  institution.1 

Protestant  practice,  however,  up  to  the  nineteenth  century 
saved  all  that  had  been  gained  by  the  sixteenth.  Marriage 
in  Protestant  communions  was  a  religious  ceremony,  or¬ 
dained  of  heaven,  blessed  by  the  Church,  performed  by  its 
ministers,  and  not  to  be  profanely  dissolved.  For  three 
centuries,  there  was  not  more  divorce  in  Protestant  than  in 

1  Luther  is  quoted  on  both  sides  of  the  question: 

“The  marriage  state  is  a  sacrament,  a  symbol  of  the  greatest,  holiest, 
noblest,  most  worthy  thing  that  has  ever  existed  or  can  exist:  the  union 
of  the  divine  and  human  natures  in  Christ.”  (Luther,  Votti  Ehelichett 
Stande ,  Bucher  und  Schriften  I,  Fol.  170b.) 

“  So  many  lands,  so  many  customs,  runs  the  common  saying.  There¬ 
fore,  since  weddings  and  matrimony  are  a  temporal  business,  it  becomes 
us  clerks  and  servants  of  the  Church  to  order  or  rule  nothing  therein, 
but  to  leave  to  each  city  and  state  its  own  usages  and  customs  in  this 
regard.”  (Strampff,  Dr.  Martin  Luther ,  pp.  340,  341,  422.) 

“  Marriage  is  a  ‘temporal  worldly  thing,’  which  ‘does  not  concern  the 
Church.’”  (Luther,  Tischreden,  Fol.  369.) 

Milton  thought  marriage  “a  civil  ordinance,  a  household  contract,  a 
thing  indifferent,  and  free  to  the  whole  race  of  mankind,  not  as  religious, 
but  as  men.” 

“As  for  marriages,  that  ministers  should  meddle  with  them,  as  not 
sanctified  or  legitimate  without  their  celebration,  I  find  no  ground  in 
scripture  either  of  precept  or  example.  Likeliest,  it  is  (which  our 
‘Selden’  hath  well  observed  I,  II,  c.  58,  ux.  Eb.)  that  in  imitation  of 
heathen  ceremonies,  and  especially,  judging  it  would  be  profitable,  in 
business  of  such  concernment  to  the  life  of  man,  they  insinuated  that 
marriage  was  not  holy  without  their  benediction,  and  for  the  better 
colour,  made  it  a  sacrament;  being  of  itself  a  civil  ordinance,  a  house¬ 
hold  contract,  a  thing  indifferent,  and  free  to  the  whole  race  of  mankind, 
not  as  religious  but  as  men:  best,  indeed,  undertaken  to  religious  ends, 
and,  as  the  apostle  saith  I  Cor.  VII,  ‘in  the  Lord.’  Yet  not,  therefore, 
invalid  01  unholy  without  a  minister  and  his  pretended  necessary  hal¬ 
lowing.  more  than  any  other  act,  enterprise,  or  contract  of  civil  life, 
which  ought  all  to  be  done  also  in  the  Lord  and  to  his  glory;  all  which, 


MODERN  CIVILIZATION 


217 


Catholic  countries*  1 ;  so  that  the  Protestant  denial  of  a  re¬ 
ligious  celibacy  which  the  Roman  preserved,  is  the  marked 
difference  between  the  two  communions.2 3 

Protestants  abolished  religious  orders,  plundered  and  de¬ 
stroyed  religious  houses,  escheated  lands  devoted  to  religious 
use.  No  Protestant  virgin,  however  pious,  or  however 
cold,  found  any  respectable  refuge  from  marriage  or  fruit¬ 
fulness.  If  she  remained  sterile,  it  was  not  as  a  bride  of 
Christ,  but  as  an  “old  maid.” 

As  between  Protestant  countries,  where  the  religious 
sterilization  of  the  pious  was  wholly  repudiated  and  ceased, 
and  Papist  countries,  where  it  continued  as  an  ideal,  and 
was  to  some  extent  still  practiced  (marriage  customs  in 
both  communions  being  the  same)  mathematical  law  would 
warrant  the  expectation  that  in  the  former  the  improve¬ 
ment  of  posterity  would  proceed  faster  and  further  than  in 
the  latter.  The  evidence  of  history  fulfills  mathematical 
expectation. 

“The  Protestant  boasts,  and  boasts  most  justly,  that 
wealth,  civilization,  and  intelligence,  have  increased  far 

no  less  than  marriage,  were  by  the  cunning  of  priests  heretofore,  as 
material  to  their  profit,  transacted  at  the  altar.  Our  divines  deny  it  to 
be  a  sacrament ;  yet  retained  the  celebration,  till  prudently  a  late  Parlia¬ 
ment  recovered  the  civil  liberty  of  marriage  from  their  encroachment, 
and  transferred  the  ratifying  and  registering  thereof  from  the  canonical 
shop  to  the  proper  cognizance  of  civil  magistrates.”  (Milton,  Prose 
Works ,  III,  21,  22.) 

1  Probably  there  was  less.  In  Spain,  the  most  Catholic  country  of 

Europe,  Cervantes  wrote  for  the  amusement  of  Spaniards,  his  Comedy 
of  the  Divorce  Court.  It  is  doubtful  if  it  could  have  been  written  in 
any  Protestant  country  then. 

3  Luther  himself  married  Catherine  Vom  Baar  a  nun.  Scandalized 
churchmen  declared  that  the  offspring  of  such  a  union  could  be  nothing 
but  devils.  More  than  three  centuries  have  passed  since  the  ministers 
of  the  Protestant  Churches  abandoned  sacredotal  celibacy  for  marriage. 
The  amount  of  genius  bom  in  humble  parsonages  during  this  period  is 
not  small;  and  if  suotracted  from  Protestant  history  would  leave  a  great 
void.  This  has  been  an  excellent  practical  trial  of  the  comparative  results 
to  be  expected  by  posterity  from  making  piety  fruitful  rather  than  sterile. 


218  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


more  on  the  northern  than  on  the  southern  side  of  the 
boundary,  and  that  countries  so  little  favoured  by  nature  as 
Scotland  and  Prussia  are  now  among  the  most  flourishing 
and  best  governed  portions  of  the  world,  while  the  marble 
palaces  of  Genoa  are  deserted,  while  the  banditti  infest  the 
beautiful  shores  of  Campania,  while  the  fertile  sea-coast  of 
the  Pontifical  State  is  abandoned  to  buffaloes  and  wild 
boars.  It  cannot  be  doubted  that,  since  the  sixteenth  cen¬ 
tury  the  Protestant  nations  have  made  decidedly  greater 
progress  than  their  neighbors.  The  progress  made  by  those 
nations  in  which  Protestantism,  though  not  finally  success¬ 
ful,  yet  maintained  a  long  struggle,  and  left  permanent 
traces,  has  generally  been  considerable.  But  when  we  come 
to  the  Catholic  Land,  to  the  part  of  Europe  in  which  the 
first  spark  of  reformation  was  trodden  out  as  soon  as  it  ap¬ 
peared,  and  from  which  proceeded  the  impulse  which  drove 
Protestantism  back,  we  find,  at  best,  a  very  slow  progress, 
and  on  the  whole  a  retrogression.  Compare  Denmark  and 
Portugal.  When  Luther  began  to  preach,  the  superiority 
of  the  Portuguese  was  unquestionable.  At  present,  the 
superiority  of  the  Danes  is  no  less  so.  Compare  Edinburgh 
and  Florence.  Edinburgh  has  owed  less  to  climate,  to  soil, 
and  to  the  fostering  care  of  rulers  than  any  capital,  Pro¬ 
testant  or  Catholic.  In  all  these  respects,  Florence  has 
been  singularly  happy.  Yet  whoever  knows  what  Florence 
and  Edinburgh  were  in  the  generation  preceding  the  Re¬ 
formation,  and  what  they  are  now,  will  acknowledge  that 
some  great  cause  has,  during  the  last  three  centuries,  oper¬ 
ated  to  raise  one  part  of  the  European  family,  and  to  de¬ 
press  the  other.  Compare  the  history  of  England  and  that 
of  Spain  during  the  last  century.  In  arms,  arts,  sciences, 
letters,  commerce,  agriculture,  the  contrast  is  most  strik¬ 
ing.  The  distinction  is  not  confined  to  this  side  of  the 
Atlantic.  The  colonies  planted  by  England  in  America 
have  immeasurably  outgrown  in  power  those  planted  by 
Spain.  Yet  we  have  no  reason  to  believe  that,  at  the  be¬ 
ginning  of  the  sixteenth  century,  the  Castilian  was  in  any 
respect  inferior  to  the  Englishman.  Our  firm  belief  is, 
that  the  North  owes  its  great  civilization  and  prosperity 
chiefly  to  the  moral  effect  of  the  Protestant  Reformation, 
and  that  the  decay  of  the  southern  countries  of  Europe  is 
to  be  mainly  ascribed  to  the  great  Catholic  revival.”1 

1  When  this  was  written,  in  1840,  Italy  had  been  suffering  for  about 
three  centuries  from  factors  always  adverse  to  augmented  nervous 
organizations. 


MODERN  Cl  VI LIZ  A  TION  2 1 9 

(Macaulay,  Historical  Essays ,  Tit:  History  of  the  Popes. 
Von  Ranke.) 

1 13.  From  the  fourth  century  to  the  tenth  century,  each 
successive  group,  as  it  was  converted  to  Christianity,  de¬ 
clined  ;  and  the  extent  of  its  decline  was  commonly  measured 
by  its  religious  zeal.  Christian  piety  was  indexed  by  mon¬ 
asteries,  convents,  celibacy,  sterility,  hair  shirts,  relics, 
pilgrimages,  miracles,  superstition,  idolatry,  intolerance, 
persecution,  decline,  disaster,  and  defeat.  The  rising 
groups  were  irreligious — the  Franks,  before  Charlemagne; 
the  Venetians  who  traded  with  the  Moslems,  and  who  sold 
Christian  slaves;  and  the  non-Christian  Moslems.  After 
the  tenth  century,  there  was  some  modification  because  of 
the  improved  marriage  customs  introduced  by  Teutonic 
and  Norman  invasions  of  the  older  Christian  lands;  and  in 
Spain,  Russia,  and  Poland  by  the  destruction  of  religious 
houses  during  the  Moslem  and  Tartar  inundations.  Both 
Spain  and  Poland  reached  their  zenith  in  the  generations 
immediately  following  these  inundations  and  declined  dur- 


a.  The  religious  sterilization  of  chaste  and  pious  women,  resulting 
in  an  unfavorable  selection  of  mothers. 

b.  A  vast  amount  of  Italian  property  in  the  demortal  hands  of  the 
church,  instead  of  in  the  mortal  hands  of  private  persons. 

c.  Prohibitions,  priestly  spies  and  spy  government  everywhere. 

d.  Universal  worship  of  visible  things — images,  shrines  and  relics. 

In  Casanova’s  lively  picture  of  Eighteenth  Century  Italian  manners 

and  morals,  all  these  factors  may  be  easily  seen,  and  the  consequent  de¬ 
cline  of  Italian  genius  might  have  been  exactly  predicted.  In  1780 
Sir  William  Hamilton,  British  Ambassador,  discovered  the  worship  of 
Priapus  still  surviving  in  a  village  a  few  hours  distant  from  Naples. 

But  even  while  Macaulay  wrote  there  had  been  a  change  from  un¬ 
favorable  to  favorable  factors,  and  Italy’s  regeneration  had  already  be¬ 
gun.  Holy  matrimony  was  revered  above  the  conventual  life,  thus 
improving  the  selection  of  mothers;  private  property  was  increasing  in 
mortal  hands;  prohibitions  and  spies  were  disappearing ;  and  the  worship 
of  images  was  declining.  Since  1840,  improvement  has  continued  at  an 
accelerating  pace  so  that  now,  more  than  eighty  years  later,  a  contrast 
between  the  Italy  of  1840  and  of  1923  is  as  striking  as  the  contrast  which 
Macaulay  drew  between  Florence  and  Edinburgh. 


220  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


ing  the  succeeding  period  of  uninterrupted  Christian 
worship  in  the  orthodox  Church. 

If  these  results  were  due  to  the  adverse  selection  of 
mothers  resulting  from  the  religious  sterilization  of  chaste 
and  pious  women,  then  it  would  be  expected  that  in  the 
reformed  Church,  where  religious  sterilization  was  alto¬ 
gether  repudiated,  Christian  piety  would  have  the  opposite 
effect.  The  evidence  of  history  fully  meets  this  mathemati¬ 
cal  expectation. 

In  the  countries  which,  after  the  sixteenth  century,  still 
adhered  to  the  unreformed  Church,  civilization  advanced 
first  and  fastest  among  the  irreligious.  It  was  in  France 
that  irreligion,  skepticism  and  atheism  first  attacked  the 
Catholic  faith. 

“Irreligion,  accidentally  associated  with  philanthropy, 
triumphed  for  a  time  over  religion  accidentally  associated 
with  political  and  social  abuses.  Everything  gave  way  to 
the  zeal  and  activity  of  the  new  reformers.  In  France, 
every  man  distinguished  in  letters  was  found  in  their  ranks. 
Every  year  gave  birth  to  works  in  which  the  fundamental 
principles  of  the  Church  were  attacked  with  argument, 
invective,  and  ridicule.” 

“Orthodoxy  soon  became  a  synonym  for  ignorance  and 
stupidity.  It  was  as  necessary  to  the  character  of  an  ac¬ 
complished  man  that  he  should  despise  the  religion  of  his 
country  as  that  he  should  know  his  letters.  The  new  doc¬ 
trines  spread  rapidly  through  Christendom.  Paris  was  the 
capital  of  the  whole  Continent.  French  was  everywhere 
the  language  of  polite  circles.  The  literary  glory  of  Italy 
and  Spain  had  departed.  That  of  Germany  had  not 
dawned.  That  of  England  shone,  as  yet,  for  the  English 
alone.  The  teachers  of  France  were  the  teachers  of  Eu¬ 
rope.  The  Parisian  opinions  spread  fast  among  the  edu¬ 
cated  classes  beyond  the  Alps:  nor  could  the  vigilance  of 
the  Inquisition  prevent  the  contraband  importation  of  the 
new  heresy  into  Castile  and  Portugal.  Governments,  even 
arbitrary  governments,  saw  with  pleasure  the  progress  of 
this  philosophy.  Numerous  reforms,  generally  laudable, 
sometimes  hurried  on  without  sufficient  regard  to  time,  to 
place,  and  to  public  feeling,  showed  the  extent  of  its  influ¬ 
ence.  The  rulers  of  Prussia,  of  Russia,  of  Austria,  and  of 


MODERN  CIVILIZATION 


221 


many  smaller  states,  were  supposed  to  be  among  the 
initiated.  ’  ’  (Macaulay,  Historical  Essays ,  Tit :  Von  Ranke’s 
History  of  the  Popes.) 

All  through  the  eighteenth  century  irreligion  grew.  From 
the  educated  classes  it  spread  to  shop-keepers,  wage- 
earners,  and  peasants.  At  the  end  of  that  century,  the 
Bourbons  were  dethroned,  the  Bastille  pulled  down,  the 
ancien  regime  ended,  and  the  republic  proclaimed.  At  this 
time  “  the  churches  were  closed;  the  bells  were  silent;  the 
shrines  were  plundered;  the  silver  crucifixes  were  melted 
down.  Buffoons,  dressed  in  copes  and  surplices,  came 
dancing  the  ‘  carmagnole  ’  even  to  the  bar  of  the  Convention. 
The  bust  of  Marat  was  substituted  for  the  statues  of  the 
martyrs  of  Christianity.  A  prostitute,  seated  on  a  chair  of 
state  in  the  chancel  of  Notre  Dame,  received  the  adoration 
of  thousands,  who  exclaimed  that  at  length,  for  the  first 
time,  those  ancient  Gothic  arches  had  resounded  with  the 
accents  of  truth.  The  new  unbelief  was  as  intolerant  as 
the  old  superstition.  To  show  reverence  for  religion  was  to 
incur  the  suspicion  of  disaffection.  It  was  not  without  im¬ 
minent  danger  that  the  priest  baptized  the  infant,  joined 
the  hands  of  lovers,  or  listened  to  the  confession  of  the  dying. 
The  absurd  worship  of  the  Goddess  of  Reason  was,  indeed, 
of  short  duration ;  but  the  deism  of  Robespierre  and  Lepaux 
was  not  less  hostile  to  the  Catholic  faith  than  the  atheism  of 
Clootz  and  Chaumette.” 

Under  Napoleon,  the  arms  of  the  irreligious  French  were 
matched  against  all  the  devout  Catholic  states  of  Europe, 
and  defeated  them  all.  And  the  nineteenth  century  con¬ 
tinued,  in  all  the  states  of  the  unreformed  Church,  to  ex¬ 
hibit  the  same  advantages  of  irreligion  that  are  to  be  ob¬ 
served  from  the  sixteenth  to  the  eighteenth  centuries.  As 
often  as  each  of  these  states  advanced,  the  rise  of  the  group 
was  marked  by  attacks  upon  the  orthodox  Church.  Re¬ 
ligious  houses  were  closed;  religious  orders  interdicted;  the 
Church’s  lands  confiscated,  its  properties  taxed,  its  tithes 


222  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


abolished.  During  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries, 
the  governments  of  these  same  states  were  the  subservient 
tools  of  the  Church,  carrying  out  its  decrees,  torturing  and 
burning  the  heretics1  found  by  its  inquisition,  and  winning 
popular  approval  by  all  these  exhibitions  of  religious 
zeal. 

This  was  a  period  of  decay.  In  each  of  these  states,  the 
revival  of  the  national  spirit  has  been  marked  by  the  state’s 
war  upon  the  Church,  no  less  popular  than  its  former 
subservience. 

1 14.  It  is  plain  that  the  effect  of  Christian  piety  in  im¬ 
proving  or  debasing  posterity,  varies  directly  according  to 
whether  it  makes  fruitful  or  sterile  the  chaste  and  pious 
women  of  the  Christian  group.  During  the  first  three  cen¬ 
turies  after  the  death  of  Jesus,  it  made  them  fruitful.  Mon- 
asticism  and  celibacy  were  not  then  preached  to  the  faithful, 
sterility  was  not  a  dogma  of  the  Church,  Christian  maidens 
were  admonished  to  be  “discreet,  chaste,  keepers  at  home, 
good,  obedient  to  their  own  husbands.”  (St.  Paul  to  Titus, 
II,  5.)  The  effect  of  this,  during  these  three  centuries,  was 
a  favorable  selection  of  mothers,  and  a  consequent  improve¬ 
ment  of  posterity ;  so  that,  by  the  fourth  century,  Christians 
seized  the  reins  of  government  and  became  masters  of  the 
Roman  empire.  The  rise  of  the  early  Christians  from  the 
first  to  the  fourth  century  is  a  near  parallel  to  the  rise  of 
Puritans,  Quakers,  and  Evangelicals  in  England  from  the 
sixteenth  to  the  nineteenth  century.  Like  causes,  a  like 
period  of  time,  and  like  results  appear  in  both. 

After  monasticism  and  religious  sterilization  became 
accepted  Christian  doctrine,  Christian  piety,  instead  of  im¬ 
proving  posterity,  debased  it ;  and  the  improvement  of  pious 
sects  in  England,  after  the  sixteenth  century,  finds  inter- 

1  Sixty-four  public  burnings  of  heretics  took  place  in  Spain  between 
1721  and  1727.  Autos-de-fe  took  place  in  Cordova  in  1728,  1730  and 
1731;  and  in  Valladolid  in  1745.  (Lea,  History  of  the  Inquisition  in 
Spain ,  Bk.  VIII,  Chap.  I.)  Convictions  for  heresy  were  made  by  the 
Church;  its  sentences  were  executed  by  the  secular  power. 


MODERN  CIVILIZATION 


223 


esting  contrasts  in  the  earlier  history  of  England  after  the 
fourth  century. 

The  first  Christians  on  the  island  of  Great  Britain  were 
the  Roman  Britons.  Their  piety  was  renowned;  they  are 
supposed  to  have  furnished  the  eleven  thousand  pious 
virgins  who  perished  with  St.  Ursula  at  the  hands  of  the 
Huns.  They  were  unable  to  withstand  the  assaults  of  the 
heathen  Piets.  They  brought  to  their  defense  heathen 
Angles,  Saxons,  and  Jutes.  And  they  finally  perished  and 
disappeared  before  all  these  heathen  invasions.  None  of 
the  first  Christians  of  Great  Britain  remained.  Even  their 
language,  their  customs,  their  place  names,  saints’  days, 
and  religious  observances  became  extinct. 

The  Anglo-Saxons  next  became  equally  pious,  and  were 
invaded  and  beaten  by  the  pagan  Danes.  The  Danes 
became  pious  and  were  invaded  and  beaten  by  the  newly 
converted  Normans.  The  Normans  became  pious,  and  the 
Norman  baronage  disappeared,  and  was  displaced  by  the 
new  nobility  of  English  stock.  Four  times  on  English  soil 
history  records  the  debasement  of  pious  Christians.  After 
the  Reformation,  it  records  their  exaltation.  In  the  groups 
that  were  debased,  piety  and  sterility,  in  the  groups  that 
were  exalted,  piety  and  fruitfulness,  went  hand  in  hand. 

In  the  reformed  Church,  Christian  piety  was  an  active 
and  efficient  factor  in  the  improvement  of  posterity.  Every 
group  which  embraced  the  reformed  doctrines  with  fanatical 
enthusiasm  rose  to  power;  and  their  rise  corresponded  to 
their  religious  zeal.  In  Holland,  the  Anabaptists,  in  Scot¬ 
land  the  Calvinists  and  Covenanters,  in  England  the  Puri¬ 
tans,  excelled  all  other  Christians  in  the  warmth  of  their 
devotion  and  the  strictness  of  their  obedience  to  the  new 
faith.  The  rise  of  each  country  followed  their  religious 
zeal.  England,  indeed,  exhibits  for  three  centuries  a  con¬ 
tinuous  succession  of  striking  examples  of  the  advantage  to 
a  group  of  Christian  piety  and  unworldliness. 

Pious  Christians  who,  in  the  tenth  century,  retired  from 
the  world,  substracted  their  virtues  from  posterity.  Equally 


224  THE  philosophy  of  civilization 


pious  Christians  in  England,  who,  after  the  sixteenth  cen¬ 
tury,  condemned  the  world  and  its  pleasures,  multiplied  and 
were  exceedingly  fruitful.  They  intermarried  and  added 
their  virtues  in  great  abundance  to  their  own  groups.  The 
first  was  the  Puritans.  They  rose  to  rule  the  common¬ 
wealth  in  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century ;  and  in  New 
England  founded  a  great  commonwealth  abroad.  Next 
came  the  Quakers,  pious  and  unworldly.  In  the  eighteenth 
century  and  in  the  early  nineteenth  century,  the  most  opu¬ 
lent  family  fortunes  of  England  and  America  belonged  to 
this  group.  There  was  no  port,  no  great  trading  or  manu¬ 
facturing  centre,  without  its  group  of  wealthy  Quakers. 
Family  names — Barclay,  Gurney,  Fox,  Buxton,  Fry  and 
Pease,  are  still  renowned  in  England  for  these  great  Quaker 
fortunes,  and  for  shrewdness,  honesty,  benevolence,  piety, 
and  public  spirit.  In  the  eighteenth  century,  Whitefield 
and  Wesley  began  to  preach  evangelical  doctrines  to  the 
lowest  of  England’s  poor.  Their  zeal  was  great,  their 
energy  indefatigable,  their  message 4  ‘  turn  from  your  wicked¬ 
ness  and  live.”  The  evangelical  movement  thus  begun, 
founded  on  piety  and  unworldliness,  separated  indeed  from 
the  established  Church,  but  departed  from  it  not  (as  in 
France)  toward  atheism  and  irreligion,  but  toward  a  holier 
life,  a  purer  faith,  a  deeper  piety,  and  an  unworldliness  that 
would  bring  them  nearer  and  nearer  to  Jesus.  They 
erected  humble  chapels,  called  their  meeting  places  Ebene- 
zer  or  Bethel ;  became  strict  Sabbatarians ;  sung  hymns  where 
every  voice  in  the  congregation  joined,  and  instrumental 
music  was  thought  sinful.  They  praised  God’s  goodness  to 
them,  and  spoke  of  the  spirit  of  Pentecost,  while  they  were 
despised  by  the  established  Church,  and  barely  tolerated  by 
the  secular  power.  A  century  later,  a  very  large  part  of 
the  old  wealth  and  much  the  greater  part  of  the  new  wealth 
of  England  was  found  in  the  hands  of  these  Evangelicals. 
The  group  contained  the  rich,  aristocratic,  and  powerful 
families  portrayed  in  the  life  of  Catherine  Marsh,  one  of 
the  influential  personages  of  her  day.  The  “Non-Con- 


MODERN  CIVILIZATION 


225 


formist  conscience  ”  became  in  about  a  century  a  command¬ 
ing  power  in  English  politics.  No  politician  or  political 
party  could  stand  against  its  disapproval.  When  Wesley’s 
preaching,  and  the  piety  of  dissenters,  began,  there  was 
rarely  an  English  Cabinet  minister  who  was  not  a  peer  or 
related  to  the  peerage ;  and  such  a  thing  as  a  dissenter  was 
unknown  in  the  Cabinet,  almost  unknown  in  the  House  of 
Commons.  A  century  after  Wesley’s  death,  the  Commons 
and  the  Cabinets  were  filled  with  adherents  of  non-con¬ 
formist  sects,  and  dissenters  had  become  prime  ministers. 

1 1 5.  The  marked  improvement  in  worldly  circumstances 
of  Christian  groups  which  piously  forsook  the  world  after 
the  Reformation,  has  a  parallel  in  the  like  improvement  in 
religious  tolerance  in  those  groups  where  religious  devotion 
was  highest.  In  the  beginning,  Lutherans,  Calvinists, 
Anabaptists,  Puritans,  Presbyterians,  Covenanters,  per¬ 
secuted,  tortured,  and  burned  with  the  same  heartiness, 
zeal,  hatred,  and  good  conscience  which  had  marked  the 
religious  dissensions  of  Christians  for  more  than  a  thousand 
years.  During  the  whole  of  that  period,  when  religious 
sterilization  of  women  was  accepted  Christian  doctrine, 
bigotry,  persecution,  torture,  and  death  had  never  flagged. 
Religious  tolerance  was  an  unknown  Christian  virtue.  The 
office  of  “Inquisitors  of  the  Faith,’’  founded  by  Theodosius 
in  the  fourth  century,  had  been  revived  as  often  as  Christian 
dissension  arose.  There  was  no  period  when  it  could  be 
affirmed  that  charity,  forgiveness,  or  brotherly  love,  existed 
between  Christian  sects.  Differences  of  opinion,  no  matter 
how  trifling,  invariably  led  to  charges  of  heresy,  and  heresy 
was  invariably  stamped  out  with  ferocious  cruelty.  No 
pause,  moderation,  restraint,  or  mercy  was  ever  shown. 
Torture  and  death  were  measured  out  in  proportions  neces¬ 
sary  to  stamp  out  heresy,  and  ceased  only  when  that  was 
accomplished.  The  persecutions  of  Christians  by  pagans 
are  short  and  pale  when  compared  to  the  long  red 
chapters  of  history  which  describe  the  persecutions  of 
Christians  by  Christians. 


VOL.  I— IS 


226  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


The  rise  and  growth  of  the  principle  of  religious  toler¬ 
ance  after  the  Reformation,  furnishes  a  marked  contrast  to 
all  other  Christian  history  since  the  Council  of  Nicaea.  In 
the  reformed  Church,  it  came  to  be  affirmed  as  a  Christian 
virtue.  What  is  noticeable  is  that  it  was  not  in  the  six¬ 
teenth  century  considered  a  virtue;  that  adherents  of  the 
reformed  creeds  were  as  fanatical  as  the  adherents  of  the 
unreformed  Church  (witness  their  willingness  to  suffer 
martyrdom) ;  so  that  the  toleration  of  rival  creeds  did  not 
spring  from  any  doubt  as  to  the  truth  of  their  own.  Never¬ 
theless,  during  all  that  period  when  fanatical  Christians 
continued  the  practice  of  religious  sterilization  of  cold  and 
pious  women,  generations  and  centuries  passed,  without  the 
principle  of  religious  toleration  ever  arising.  During  two 
centuries,  when  fanatical  Christians  abandoned  this  prac¬ 
tice  and  made  their  most  chaste  and  pious  virgins  fruitful, 
the  doctrine  of  religious  toleration  rose,  and  became  gener¬ 
ally  accepted  in  the  reformed  Church.  They  took  pains 
to  write  religious  toleration  into  the  fundamental  law  of 
new  commonwealths  which  they  established.  It  is  impos¬ 
sible  to  escape  the  inference  that  the  changed  selection  of 
mothers  which  made  the  Reformation  successful  in  the  six¬ 
teenth  century,  was  likewise  a  potent  cause  in  the  rise  and 
growth  of  the  principle  of  religious  toleration  in  the  reformed 
Church. 

1 1 6.  Side  by  side  with  religious  toleration,  a  new  ideal  of 
human  liberty  and  the  rights  of  man  rose  in  the  reformed 
Church.  In  respect  to  the  political  ideal  usually  repre¬ 
sented  by  the  words  “freedom”  and  “democracy”  history 
affords  some  interesting  contrasts  and  parallels. 

In  the  Byzantine  empire,  devout  and  orthodox  Christians, 
inheriting  from  the  beginning  the  Christian  tradition,  prac¬ 
tices,  and  religion,  endured  oppression  for  a  thousand  years 
without  once  rising  to  the  ideal  of  liberty  or  popular  rule. 
Sometimes  the  contented,  sometimes  the  rebellious,  subjects 
of  a  despotic  throne,  they  remained  always  subservient,  and 


MODERN  CIVILIZATION 


227 


the  object  of  their  occasional  revolts  was  only  to  change  the 
oppressor,  never  to  abolish  oppression.  In  the  western 
Church,  the  general  progress  of  government  until  the  Re¬ 
formation  was  toward  a  like  despotism.  Representative 
institutions  decayed  while  the  power  of  the  crown  increased. 
In  the  course  of  six  centuries,  the  Cortes  of  Spain,  the 
States  General  of  France,  the  Republics  of  Italy,  surren¬ 
dered  their  powers  to  hereditary  monarchies.  So  that  the 
fifteenth,  sixteenth,  and  seventeenth  centuries,  found 
western  Europe  under  the  sway  of  the  most  despotic  rulers 
that  were  ever  known.  Henry  VIII  of  England,  Charles  V 
and  Philip  II  of  Spain,  and  Louis  XIV  of  France,  are  notice¬ 
able  examples  of  back-sliding  toward  oppression.  After 
the  sixteenth  century,  states  which  adhered  to  the  reformed 
Church  show  in  general  a  steady  progress  from  oppression 
and  toward  freedom;  and  it  is  most  interesting  to  observe 
that  this  impulse  toward  freedom  was  strongest  where  the 
reformed  Christians  were  most  religious.  In  Holland, 
filled  with  Anabaptists  and  fanatical  Protestants,  there  was 
the  rise  of  the  Dutch  Republic.  In  England,  at  the  end  of 
the  sixteenth  century,  says  Green,  “the  whole  nation  be¬ 
came  in  fact  a  Church.”  The  most  fanatical  sect  of  the 
Christians  were  the  Puritans.  They  abolished  the  crown 
altogether  and  set  up  the  commonwealth. 

In  the  unreformed  Church,  the  influence  of  religious 
fanaticism  on  political  freedom  as  on  religious  tolerance 
was  just  the  opposite.  Those  countries  which  remained 
rigidly  orthodox,  those  in  which  heresy  was  stamped  out 
altogether — Spain,  Italy,  Hungary,  Poland — remained 
under  the  old  oppression.  New  political  institutions  and 
new  freedom  had  no  influence.  The  one  Catholic  country 
that  moved  toward  freedom  was  France,  where  irreligion 
most  prevailed.  In  France,  it  was  the  irreligious  whose 
voices  and  pens  made  freedom  possible.  So  that,  when  the 
atheistic  teachings  of  a  century  culminated  in  the  French 
revolution,  the  political  leaders  who  beheaded  the  French 
king  were  almost  as  fanatical  in  their  irreligion  as  the  Eng- 


228  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


lish  Puritans  who  beheaded  Charles  I  had  been  in  their 
religion. 

Here,  then,  is  an  interesting  parallel  between  the  con¬ 
tinuous  despotism  of  the  Eastern  Church  and  of  the  Wes¬ 
tern  Church  as  long  as  the  religious  sterilization  of  cold 
and  pious  women  was  accepted  doctrine ;  and  an  interesting 
contrast  between  the  orthodox  Church  which  professed  this 
doctrine  and  the  reformed  Church  which  repudiated  it. 
The  contrast  is  not  alone  between  two  different  eras.  A 
continuance  of  oppression  in  the  most  religious  states  of  the 
unreformed  Church  and  the  growth  of  liberty  in  irreligious 
France  were  contemporaneous  with  the  rise  of  free  institu¬ 
tions  in  the  most  religious  states  of  the  reformed  Church. 
It  is  a  just  inference  that  the  religious  sterilization  of  cold 
and  pious  women,  continuously  subtracting  their  virtues 
from  posterity,  made  the  groups  which  practiced  it  the  will¬ 
ing  slaves  of  despotism.  The  repudiation  and  reversal  of 
this  doctrine  changed  the  selection  of  mothers,  and  gradu¬ 
ally  raised  a  love  of  liberty  in  the  groups  which  were 
converted  to  the  reformed  Church. 

The  apparent  exception  of  Germany  furnishes  corrobo¬ 
rative  evidence.  For  Germany  was  so  nearly  depopulated 
by  the  Thirty  Years’  War  that  loose  sexual  unions  were 
adopted  and  became  general  among  the  common  people. 
Protestant  Germany,  therefore,  missed  the  advantages  of 
strict  marriage  customs  which  would  serve  to  impress  mater¬ 
nity  upon  the  cold  women  of  the  masses  of  the  population. 
Free  institutions  and  political  liberty  did  not  rise  in  Germany 
as  in  other  Protestant  states. 

1 17.  The  virtue  displayed  by  Roman  wives  during  the 
long  period  when  monogamous  Roman  marriage  customs 
impressed  maternity  upon  cold  women  regardless  of  their 
own  consent,  and  the  virtues  displayed  by  early  Christian 
wives  before  religious  sterility  became  accepted  Christian 
doctrine,  are  again  exhibited  by  the  wives  of  the  most  re¬ 
ligious  sects  of  the  reformed  Church.  St.  Augustine’s 
praise  of  his  mother  finds  its  parallel  in  the  Puritan  mother 


MODERN  CIVILIZATION 


229 


of  a  poor  London  household  at  the  end  of  the  sixteenth 
century. 

“Take  such  a  portrait  as  that  which  John  Wallington,  a 
turner  in  Eastcheap  has  left  us  of  a  London  housewife,  his 
mother.  ‘She  was  very  loving,’  he  says,  ‘and  obedient  to 
her  parents,  loving  and  kind  to  her  husband,  very  tender¬ 
hearted  to  her  children,  loving  all  that  were  godly,  much 
misliking  the  wicked  and  profane.  She  was  a  pattern  of 
sobriety  unto  many,  very  seldom  was  seen  abroad  except 
at  Church;  when  others  recreated  themselves  at  holidays 
and  other  times,  she  would  take  her  needlework  and  say 
“here  is  my  recreation.”  .  .  .  God  had  given  her  a  preg¬ 
nant  wit,  and  an  excellent  memory.  She  was  very  ripe  and 
perfect  in  all  stories  of  the  Bible,  likewise  in  all  the  stories  of 
the  Martyrs,  and  could  readily  turn  to  them ;  she  was  also 
perfect  and  well  seen  in  the  English  Chronicles,  and  in  the 
descents  of  the  Kings  of  England.  She  lived  in  holy  wed¬ 
lock  with  her  husband  twenty  years,  wanting  but  four 
days.’  ”  (Green,  Short  History  of  the  English  People ,  Chap. 
VIII,  Sect.  I.) 

The  ancient  celebrity  of  the  Roman  matron  revived  in  the 
British  matron.  Taine,  in  his  History  of  English  Literature , 
reviews  the  dramatic  poets  of  the  Elizabethan  era.  His 
testimony  is  the  more  valuable  as  the  testimony  of  an  out¬ 
sider  and  a  Frenchman ;  and  he  describes  with  unfeigned  ad¬ 
miration  and  astonishment  the  wives  and  mothers  he  finds 
depicted  in  the  English  literature  of  this  age. 

“  By  a  singular  coincidence,  the  women  are  more  of  women, 
the  men  more  of  men,  here  than  elsewhere.  The  two 
natures  go  each  to  its  extreme:  in  the  one  to  boldness,  the 
spirit  of  enterprise  and  resistance,  the  warlike,  imperious, 
and  unpolished  character;  in  the  other  to  sweetness,  devo¬ 
tion,  patience,  inextinguishable  affection,  a  thing  unknown 
in  distant  lands,  in  France  especially  so :  a  woman  in  Eng¬ 
land  gives  herself  without  drawing  back,  and  places  her 
glory  and  duty  in  obedience,  forgiveness,  adoration,  wish¬ 
ing  and  professing  only  to  be  melted  and  absorbed  daily 
deeper  and  deeper  in  him  whom  she  had  freely  and  for  ever 
chosen. 


230  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


“See  the  representation  of  this  character  throughout 
English  and  German  literature.  Stendhal,  an  acute  ob¬ 
server  saturated  with  Italian  and  French  morals  and  ideas, 
is  astonished  at  this  phenomenon.  He  understands  noth¬ 
ing  of  this  kind  of  devotion,  ‘this  slavery  which  English 
husbands  have  had  the  wit  to  impose  on  their  wives  under 
the  name  of  duty/”  (H.  A.  Taine,  History  of  English 
Literature ,  Bk.  II,  Chap.  II,  Sect.  7.) 

History  records  no  selection  of  mothers  more  favorable 
than  this.  Abnegation,  duty,  obedience,  piety,  chastity, 
virtues  which  the  unreformed  Church  would  have  devoted 
to  cloistered  sterility,  now  in  the  reformed  Church  by  a 
religious  ceremony  are  consecrated  to  marriage  and  mother¬ 
hood.  These  are  deeply  religious  women,  faithful  to  the 
Church,  obedient  to  fathers  and  husbands,  made  fruitful 
not  by  asserting  their  own  desires,  but  by  submitting  to  the 
will  of  God.  They  go  as  virgins  to  the  marriage  bed  and 
children  are  begotten  upon  them  because  of  their  holy 
spirit. 

1 18.  The  marriage  customs  of  early  Rome  and  of  the 
early  Christians,  imparted  a  strong  strain  of  sexual  coldness 
in  posterity.  In  Rome,  in  the  fourth  century  b.c.,  the 
coldness  of  Roman  wives  made  monogamous  marriage  al¬ 
most  an  insupportable  burden ;  and  the  conspiracy  of  some 
scores  of  matrons  to  poison  their  husbands  has  been  already 
related.  Evidence  of  the  same  strain  of  sexual  coldness  in 
the  early  Christians  is  found  in  the  eager  acceptance  of  the 
doctrine  of  monasticism,  celibacy,  and  virginity  in  the 
fourth  century  a.d.  The  same  marriage  customs  in  the  re¬ 
formed  Church  should  show  a  like  result.  Successive 
generations  of  women,  married  and  fruitful  from  obedience 
rather  than  desire  ought  to  be  followed  by  an  augmented 
nervous  organization,  increased  intellect  and  spirituality, 
and  by  evidence  of  sexual  coldness  in  their  posterity.  The 
amazing  growth  of  intellect  and  spirituality  in  the  Eliza¬ 
bethan  age  of  England  is  well  known,  and  need  not  be  re¬ 
counted  in  detail.  Evidence  of  the  growth  of  sexual  coldness 


MODERN  CIVILIZATION 


231 


is  found  in  the  rise  in  England  at  this  period  of  the  ideal  of 
Platonic  Love.  The  New  English  Dictionary  notes  the  first 
English  use  of  this  term  in  1636.  It  was  applied  to  love 
or  affection  for  one  of  the  opposite  sex,  of  a  purely  spiritual 
character,  and  free  from  sexual  desire.  In  1645  Howell 
wrote:  “The  court  affords  little  news  at  present,  but  that 
ther  is  a  love,  called  Platonick  Love,  which  much  swayes 
ther  of  late.  It  is  a  love  .  .  .  (that)  consists  in  con¬ 
templation  and  ideas  of  the  mind,  not  in  any  carnall 
fruition.”  {Howell  Letters ,  1650,  VI,  203.) 

Platonic  love  was  observed  by  many  with  incredulity 
and  was  made  the  butt  of  ridicule.  It  is,  however,  an  evi¬ 
dence  of  sexual  coldness,  the  logical  result  of  the  marriage 
customs  of  the  most  religious  sects  of  the  reformed  Church. 
For  the  first  time  since  the  fourth  century,  Christians  had 
made  marriage  frankly,  openly,  and  earnestly  a  holy  sacra¬ 
ment,  performed  by  a  religious  ceremony,  in  the  body  of  the 
Church,  by  its  ministers,  and  requiring  the  bride’s  meek 
submission  to  an  ordinance  of  heaven.  They  had  repudi¬ 
ated  the  ideal  that  there  was  something  holier.  Chaste  and 
pious  maidens  were  forbidden  to  look  to  sterility  as  pleasing 
to  God.  Marriage  bound  them  for  life  to  one  husband,  and 
bound  the  husband  to  one  wife.  Always  and  everywhere 
the  effect  of  such  marriage  institutions  is  to  forbid  the  ad¬ 
verse  selection  of  ardent  women  for  motherhood,  cold  ones 
for  sterility.  Submission,  obedience,  piety,  take  the  place 
of  desire,  and  impress  maternity  upon  cold  women.  The 
result  in  any  group  may  be  expected  and  observed  with 
mathematical  certainty.  In  everything  that  goes  to  make 
a  civilization  the  group  improves. 

1 19.  During  the  period  of  two  centuries  from  the  middle 
of  the  seventeenth  to  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
civilization  had  a  brilliant  rise;  and  it  is  plain  that  this 
was  a  rise  of  the  middle  class.  The  lesser  aristocracy  of 
landowners,  continuously  recruited  from  the  middle  class, 
cannot  be  segregated  from  it.  But  in  respect  to  the  princely 
caste,  it  is  evident  that  the  hereditary  rulers  vanquished  by 


232  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


Napoleon  at  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century,  were 
not  possessed  of  a  genius  and  ability  surpassing  their  prede¬ 
cessors  of  the  seventeenth  century,  or  even  their  earliest 
ancestors  of  the  thirteenth  century.  “Bourbonism”  be¬ 
came  a  synonym  for  intellectual  stagnation — the  mind  that 
learned  nothing  and  forgot  nothing.  In  respect  to  the 
peasantry  it  is  equally  evident  that  there  was  no  spiritual 
advance.  Professor  Mavor  declares  that  the  Russian 
peasantry  declined  in  the  three  centuries  following  Ivan  the 
Terrible.  In  Poland,  Hungary,  and  Eastern  Europe  gener¬ 
ally,  the  condition  of  the  peasants  during  these  two 
centuries  remained  unchanged,  except  possibly  in  a 
change  for  the  worse.  In  Germany,  Protestant  as  well 
as  Catholic,  the  same  held  true.  Serfdom  continued  in  some 
of  the  German  states  until  the  nineteenth  century.  In 
Italy  the  contadini  did  not  improve.  The  Spanish  peasant, 
whom  George  Borrow  met  in  1840,  was  probably  less  enter¬ 
prising  and  resourceful  than  his  ancestors  of  1540.  France, 
during  these  two  centuries,  had  a  brilliant  intellectual  rise; 
but  the  state  of  French  agriculture,  as  described  by  Arthur 
Young  at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century,  was  probably 
worse  than  it  had  been  two  centuries  before;  and  the  French 
peasant  painted  by  Millet  in  the  nineteenth  century,  shows 
no  improvement  over  the  peasant  of  the  thirteenth. 

Two  things  show  the  general  stagnation  of  the  European 
peasantry  during  this  period.  First,  the  abundance  of 
savage  beasts  roaming  forests  and  fields;  their  numbers 
seem  hardly  to  have  been  diminished  notwithstanding  the 
considerable  increase  of  the  peasant  population.  Second, 
the  ability  of  rulers,  up  to  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  to  command  their  own  states  and  to  fight  their 
neighbors  with  small  armies  of  professional  soldiers.  The 
best  evidence  of  a  rising  peasantry  is  their  ability  to  beat 
the  professional  man  at  arms,  as  the  English  bowmen  beat 
the  French  knights  at  Cressy.  Until  the  middle  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  an  armed  nation  resulting  from  uni¬ 
versal  military  conscription,  was  unknown.  The  peasantry 


MODERN  CIVILIZATION 


233 


were  everywhere  kept  in  subjection  by  a  few  soldiers  drawn 
from  their  own  number.  In  America,  during  this  same 
period,  those  immigrants  drawn  from  the  peasant  and  serv¬ 
ing  class,  and  not  from  the  middle  class,  remained  as  stag¬ 
nant  as  in  Europe.  In  the  twentieth  century  they  are  still 
called  ‘‘Elizabethan.”  The  colonists  who  fought  at 
Cowpens  and  King’s  Mountain  in  the  Revolutionary  War, 
were  probably  superior  to  the  same  class  of  poor  whites, 
one  hundred  years  later.  The  backwardness  of  this  class 
in  America  may  be  taken  as  evidence  that  it  was  not  due  to 
oppression,  taxation,  monarchical,  or  aristocratic  insti¬ 
tutions. 

120.  The  middle  class  during  the  same  period,  had  a 
marvelous  rise  and  carried  civilization  up  with  it.  History 
shows  a  continuous  augmentation  in  the  intellectual  and 
spiritual  qualities  of  this  class,  not  shared  by  other  classes. 
This  advancement  cannot  be  ascribed  to  government,  be¬ 
cause  it  occurred  under  governments  of  various  sorts.  It 
cannot  be  ascribed  to  religion;  the  middle  class  and  the 
lower  classes  were  of  the  same  religion — Catholic  in  papal 
countries,  Protestant  in  Protestant  countries.  It  cannot 
be  ascribed  to  oppression  of  the  lower  classes ;  for  this  class 
failed  to  advance  in  America  where  it  was  not  oppressed; 
and  the  improvement  of  the  middle  class  surpassed  the 
aristocratic  and  upper  classes,  who  were  not  oppressed. 
Evidence  has  been  given  to  show  that  the  augmentation  of 
the  nervous  organization  of  man,  resulting  in  increased  in¬ 
tellectuality  and  spirituality,  has  been  due  in  all  other 
civilized  groups  to  the  propagation  of  and  by  cold  women. 
It  would  be  expected,  therefore,  that  in  this  class  condi¬ 
tions  for  the  such  propagation  were  favorable,  while  in  the 
other  classes  they  were  less  favorable,  or  unfavorable.  An 
examination  of  the  evidence  fulfills  this  expectation  in  all 
respects. 

The  favorable  influences  exerted  by  alcoholic  temptation 
and  by  private  property  are  part  of  the  general  history  of 
mankind  and  are  dealt  with  in  separate  chapters.  Here 


234  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


there  will  be  considered  only  the  immediate  influence  of 
marriage,  prostitution,  and  famine,  in  the  selection  of 
mothers. 

121.  In  the  upper  classes,  marriage  had  been  for  cen¬ 
turies  and  continued  to  be  by  custom  and  tradition,  a  matter 
of  “ settlements.”  The  urban  middle  class,  as  fast  as  it 
acquired  wealth,  standing,  and  independence,  so  as  to 
create  customs  of  its  own,  adopted  these  marriage  customs 
of  the  upper  class.  Marriage  was  a  financial  arrangement, 
and  every  bride  was  expected  to  bring  to  her  husband  a  por¬ 
tion.  This  is  seen  plainly  as  early  as  the  sixteenth  century, 
extending  to  the  English  yeomanry.  “My  father,”  said 
Latimer,  in  his  first  sermon  before  King  Edward  VI,  “was  a 
yeoman  and  had  no  landes  of  hys  owne.  He  maryed  my 
sisters  with  five  pound,  or  XX.  nobles  apiece,  so  that  he 
brought  them  up  in  godliness,  and  the  f eare  of  God.  * ’  In  the 
nineteenth  century,  Tennyson’s  Northern  Farmer  hears 
“proputty,  proputty,  proputty”  in  his  horse’s  canter,  and 
tells  his  son  “  ‘  Doant  thou  marry  for  munny,  but  goa  wheer 
munny  is.’  ”  Here  then  in  the  yeoman  class  from  the  six¬ 
teenth  to  the  nineteenth  century,  marriage  is  not  merely  a 
question  of  desire  and  consequent  mating.  It  is  a  financial 
arrangement  for  the  transfer  of  property. 

It  is  from  the  yeoman  class  that  much  of  the  urban 
middle  class  is  recruited;  and  as  this  latter  class  acquires 
wealth  and  solidarity,  and  establishes  customs  of  its  own,  it 
goes  further  than  the  yeoman  class  in  approaching  the  mar¬ 
riage  customs  of  the  upper  classes.  The  daughters  of  the 
bourgeoisie  are  portioned,  marriage  is  negotiated  as  an  ex¬ 
change  of  property,  and  conveys  property  rights.  Daugh¬ 
ters  of  the  house  are  not  permitted  to  say  whether  or  whom 
they  will  marry.  Old  Capulet,  storming  at  Juliet,  is  an 
excellent  illustration  of  the  uniform  marriage  customs  of 
the  bourgeoisie  throughout  Europe.  For  Shakespeare’s 
Romeo  and  Juliet  tells  an  Italian  story  for  English  audi¬ 
ences.  The  attitude  of  Capulet  toward  his  daughter’s 
marriage,  was  equally  Italian  and  English. 


MODERN  CIVILIZATION 


235 


“Thank  me  no  thankings,  nor  proud  me  no  prouds, 

But  fettle  your  fine  joints  ’gainst  Thursday  next 
To  go  with  Paris  to  Saint  Peter’s  Church 
Or  I  will  drag  thee  on  a  hurdle  thither.” 

A  century  after  Shakespeare,  the  same  marriage  customs 
may  be  seen  unchanged  in  the  long  account  of  Pepys’ 
Diary,  concerning  the  negotiations  and  settlements  for  his 
brother’s  marriage.  The  same  custom  was  noted  and 
questioned  by  Dr.  Johnson. 

“There  wanders  about  the  world  a  wild  notion,  which 
extends  over  marriage  more  than  over  any  other  transac¬ 
tion.  If  Miss — — ■  followed  a  trade,  would  it  be  said  that 
she  was  bound  in  conscience  to  give  or  refuse  credit  at  her 
father’s  choice?  And  is  not  marriage  a  thing  in  which  she 
is  more  interested,  and  has  therefore  more  right  of  choice?  ” 
{Letters  to  Mrs.  Thrale ,  I,  83,  4;  1773.) 

In  Locksley  Hall  in  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  Tennyson  scolded  against  it.  It  is  unnecessary 
to  cite  further  evidence  or  to  multiply  instances.  Dr. 
Johnson’s  hyperbole  “about  the  world”  must  be  under¬ 
stood  as  meaning  the  middle  and  upper  classes  of 
Christendom;  and  as  thus  understood  it  is  correct.  Let¬ 
ters,  diaries,  memoirs,  biographies,  novels,  and  plays  of  all 
Europe  for  at  least  two  centuries,  in  France  and  England1 

1  Since  this  was  written  Mr.  Maurice  Hewlett  has  given  a  brief  and 
accurate  summary  of  English  marriage  as  it  existed  up  to  1830. 

“I  suppose  that  Love’s  great  usurpation  took  place  here  when  the 
British  developed  the  inordinate  sentimentalism  which  still  afflicts  us. 
Broadly  speaking,  it  was  kept  in  its  proper  place  in  domestic  life  until 
the  nineteenth  century  was  thirty  years  old.  You  can  almost  date  it 
by  great  Victoria.  From  the  Pastons  to  Pepys,  from  Pepys  to  Wal¬ 
pole,  and  from  him  to  Jane  Austen  you  may  read  how  the  British  people 
made  marriage  in  all  walks  of  life.  Liking,  in  the  male,  may  have 
prompted  the  transaction,  but  it  was  strictly  regulated  by  convenience 
and  the  real  end  of  life.  It  was  a  matter  of  bargain,  sometimes  of 
bargain  and  sale.”  (Maurice  Hewlett,  Wiltshire  Essays;  Oxford  Uni¬ 
versity  Press,  1921 ;  The  Great  Affair.) 

The  change  since  then  may  be  ascribed  to : 


536  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


for  three  centuries,  attest  the  compulsory  marriage  of 
daughters  of  the  middle  class,  in  obedience  to  parental  com¬ 
mand,  as  a  custom  universal,  undisputed,  and  (until  the 
nineteenth  century)  hardly  questioned.  This  class  was 
eager  for  property,  and  marriage  was  one  way  of  acquiring, 
preserving,  and  transmitting  it  to  posterity.  Cohabitation 
and  potential  parenthood,  without  an  eye  to  property,  but 
for  love  alone,  was  looked  upon  not  as  marriage,  but  as 
mesalliance  and  misfortune. 

122.  Parental  command  had  some  powerful  auxiliaries. 
In  Protestant  countries,  marriage  was  looked  upon  as 
woman’s  religious  duty.  Sterile  virginity,  which,  for  twelve 
unlucky  centuries,  had  passed  among  Christians  not  only  as 
respectable,  but  as  the  highest  and  holiest  estate  of  woman, 

I.  Universal  English  literacy  of  all  classes.  The  upper  classes  no 
longer  read  Latin  or  Greek;  the  lower  classes  which  formerly  read 
nothing  but  the  Bible,  now  read  everything  else  printed  in  English. 

II.  Hence  the  market  for  English  literature  has  been  enlarged  to  in¬ 
clude  the  whole  English  speaking  world,  every  class  of  society  and  every 
shade  of  religious  or  irreligious  opinion. 

III.  For  a  century  this  huge  market  has  been  supplied  by  story 
tellers  of  whom  the  greater  number  tell  love  stories. 

IV.  Cheap  paper,  printing  and  postage  has  given  to  the  love  story 
the  widest  dissemination  among  all  classes  of  society  which  it  has  ever 
received  in  the  history  of  the  world.  Instead  of  being  told  orally  in 
bazaars  and  market  places  to  the  small  crowd  that  can  assemble  within 
the  sound  of  the  story  teller’s  voice,  the  love  story  has  been  for  two 
generations  carried  to  every  home  and  fireside  and  treasured  in  even  the 
poorest  chambers  and  the  meanest  huts. 

The  result  has  been  to  exalt  the  mutual  passions  of  the  sexes  and  en¬ 
throne  sexual  love  as  a  God.  The  reversal  in  the  marriage  customs  of 
the  English  speaking  peoples  is  complete  and  the  change  in  national 
character,  already  apparent,  will  increase  with  each  generation.  For 
two  generations  after  1830  English  love  stories  were  usually  marked  by 
decency  and  restraint,  attributable  to  a  long  background  of  a  favorable 
selection  of  mothers.  Love  was  elevated  above  passion,  and  its  spirit¬ 
ual  qualities  were  uppermost.  In  the  third  generation  this  has  changed 
and,  as  the  relations  of  the  sexes  grow  more  oriental,  English  love  stories 
become  more  and  more  like  the  love  tales  of  the  Arabian  nights.  Eng¬ 
lish  civilization  is  taking  the  same  course  as  Roman  and  from  the  same 
cause. 


MODERN  CIVILIZATION 


237 


was  abandoned  and  abhorred.  The  Protestant  maiden  of 
the  middle  classes  who  did  not  marry,  was  an  object  of  pity 
and  derision,  and  was  most  fortunate  if  this  were  secret, 
and  not  portrayed  openly  to  her  face.  Girls  were  educated 
for  marriage ;  brought  up  to  play  with  dolls  in  their  tender- 
est  years;  then  to  learn  household  tasks  and  the  manage¬ 
ment  of  a  home ;  finally  to  acquire  polite  accomplishments — 
fine  needlework,  embroidery,  music,  and  things  that  would 
occupy  mind  and  fingers,  while  making  home  a  pleasant 
place.  All  this  was  with  a  view  to  their  marriage.  For 
marriage  was  not  only  their  most  desirable  career,  it  was 
their  only  career.  In  the  education  of  one  sex  there  was  no 
selection  against  the  home.  It  was  not  intended  that  a 
respectable  middle  class  girl  should  exercise  a  wide  choice  as 
to  her  future,  and  accept  a  position  as  wife  and  mother  only 
because  nothing  else  more  interesting,  lucrative,  or  suitable 
attracted  her.  Her  education  was  intended  to  and  did  dis¬ 
qualify  her  for  all  other  pursuits  but  the  pursuit  of  a  hus¬ 
band.  If  she  took  service,  gained  wages,  or  followed  any 
calling  whatsoever  for  a  livelihood,  she  lost  caste  at  once. 
Social  pressure  was  added  to  parental  command,  to  early 
training,  and  to  later  education.  The  view  of  her  parents 
as  to  the  desirability  and  suitability  of  marriage  was  the 
view  of  all  her  relations,  however  distant,  of  her  friends,  her 
Church,  her  pastor,  and  her  God.  For  two  centuries,  no 
Protestant  maiden  in  a  middle  class  family  was  allowed  to 
think  that  life  contained  for  her  anything  higher  or  holier  or 
better — anything  to  be  more  eagerly  sought,  earnestly 
aspired  to,  and  instantly  accepted  than  a  good  marriage. 

Finally,  in  all  this  teaching  there  was  no  thought  of  self¬ 
ishness;  least  of  all  was  there  any  element  of  carnal  indul¬ 
gence.  From  the  daughters  of  the  respectable  middle  class, 
the  venereal  aspects  of  marriage  were  hidden  with  the  most 
anxious  care.  Most  significant  of  the  effect  upon  posterity 
of  these  marriage  customs  was  the  fact  that  each  genera¬ 
tion  of  brides  was  more  ignorant  of  nuptial  expectations  than 
the  generation  before.  At  the  beginning  of  this  period, 


238  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


coarse  jokes  and  raillery,  descending  to  obscenity,  still 
hovered  round  the  marriage  ceremony.  At  the  end  of  it 
they  had  quite  disappeared. 

To  the  virgin  daughter  of  the  pious  middle  class,  her 
marriage  meant  much.  If  she  were  brought  up,  as  she 
usually  was,  by  stern  parents,  marriage  was  her  last  act  of 
obedience  to  their  parental  rule.  By  marriage,  she  herself 
became  head  of  a  household,  invested  with  the  sceptre  of 
command.  Families  were  prolific,  and  most  girls  grew  up  in 
a  house  full  of  brothers  and  sisters  who  trampled  unceasingly 
upon  their  feelings,  teased  them  unmercifully  for  any  id¬ 
iosyncrasies,  and  rubbed  them  smooth  of  all  individuality. 
By  marriage,  a  girl  escaped  this  and  gained  a  home  where  she 
suffered  the  enforced  companionship  of  only  one  human 
being  instead  of  a  dozen.  Marriage,  too,  was  a  refuge  from 
poverty  and  a  provision  for  old  age.  These  were  its  worldly 
advantages,  and  the  most  pious  evangelical  circles  taught 
that  they  were  not  to  be  despised. 

But,  also,  marriage  was  a  holy  ordinance,  celebrated  with 
solemn  religious  rites.  Any  girl  could  remember  her  con¬ 
firmation.  Marriage  was  like  unto  it.  From  earliest  child¬ 
hood  this  had  been  impressed  upon  her.  The  notion  of 
married  life  as  an  indulgence  of  the  body’s  lust,  never 
crossed  her  mind  nor  was  admitted  to  her  inmost  thoughts. 
Marriage  was  her  priesthood.  It  had  the  worldly  advan¬ 
tages  of  home,  rank,  position,  property,  security,  social  con¬ 
sideration,  and  independence.  These  were  tithes  paid  to 
virtue,  duty,  obedience,  unselfishness,  and  religious  sub¬ 
mission  to  the  Divine  will.  All  this  was  bound  up  in  God’s 
holy  ordinance  of  matrimony;  all  this  she  saw  in  every 
wedding;  and  she  trusted  and  believed  that  the  appointed 
day  would  come  when  she  too,  a  pure  virgin  clad  in  cere¬ 
monial  robes,  would  march  down  the  ancient  Church’s 
well-remembered  aisles  in  solemn  procession,  with  prayers 
and  music,  to  make  the  sacred  vows  and  receive  by  Divine 
command  the  religious  ordination,  that  consecrated  her,  as 
wife  and  mother,  to  the  holy  service  of  God. 


MODERN  CIVILIZATION 


239 


123.  Among  the  lower  classes,  the  institution  of  mar¬ 
riage  was  quite  the  reverse  of  what  it  was  in  the  middle  and 
upper  classes.  No  property  rights  were  involved;  for 
neither  bride  nor  groom  had  property.  In  the  landless 
agricultural  class,  marriage  afforded  the  woman  no  es¬ 
cape  from  labor,  poverty,  or  a  destitute  old  age.  Pea¬ 
sants  of  both  sexes  labored  in  the  fields  before  and  during 
coverture.  No  maiden  looked  forward  to  marriage  as  an 
escape  from  drudgery.  Parental  command  was  equally 
wanting.  Not  only  the  labor  of  their  daily  lives,  but  holi¬ 
days,  games,  festivals,  and  fairs,  brought  the  young  of  both 
sexes  together  and  direct  courtship  was  customary  and  ex¬ 
pected.  Young  men  did  not  pay  their  “addresses”  to  the 
opposite  sex,  and  bashfully  ask  the  loved  one’s  father  for  her 
hand.  They  wooed  without  ceremony,  and  were  often  ac¬ 
cepted  without  it;  marriage  followed,  to  legalize  a  union 
already  in  fact  accomplished.  Girls  wanted  to  marry,  and 
social  pressure  favored  marriage ;  but  favored  it  because  it 
favored  lawful  as  against  unlawful  unions  legitimate  over 
bastard  children.  Girls  were  not  educated  for  marriage 
alone,  and  disqualified  for  everything  else.  They  lost  no 
social  esteem  by  going  out  to  service,  or  taking  wages,  or 
becoming  self-supporting.  Indeed,  girls  who  could  abide 
sterility  had  every  incentive  to  do  so.  They  were  likely 
to  have  pleasanter  surroundings,  under  a  drier  roof,  in  a 
warmer  house,  with  a  softer  bed,  better  food,  and  superior 
bodily  comforts,  if  they  remained  in  service  as  maids,  than  if 
they  took  husbands  from  their  own  class.  Drunkenness, 
and  wife  beating  were  extremely  common;  so  common  that 
it  must  be  presumed  that  every  girl  knew  that  marriage 
would  expose  her  to  blows. 

Neither  did  girls  of  this  class  remain  in  sexual  ignorance. 
Among  the  agricultural  peasants,  children  acquire  sexual 
knowledge  at  a  very  early  age.  The  dairy,  sheep-fold,  and 
poultry-yard,  are  the  earliest  co-educational  institutions 
where  boys  and  girls  learn  together  the  same  things.  In 
the  towns,  where  the  modesty  and  ignorance  of  girls  of  the 


240  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


middle  and  upper  classes  were  carefully  protected,  lust  and 
obscenity  were  continually  thrust  upon  the  attention  of 
girls  of  the  lower  classes.  Courtship  by  pairing  off  alone, 
with  the  resulting  amorous  bodily  contact,  forbidden  to 
girls  of  the  middle  and  upper  classes,  was  universally  ex¬ 
pected  and  accepted  by  girls  of  the  lower  class.  This  alone 
dispelled  sexual  ignorance.  Besides  their  general  acquies¬ 
cence  in  a  daughter’s  intimacy  with  her  suitor,  parents 
gave  it  special  sanction  and  convenience  by  the  practice  of 
“bundling.”  Even  now,  when  class  standards  are  not 
nearly  so  far  apart  as  before  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  public  love  making  is,  as  may  be  seen,  still  ac¬ 
cepted  as  the  correct  thing  by  that  class  in  which  it  is  an 
unbroken  tradition. 

Finally,  to  all  these  considerations  of  absence  of  property, 
absence  of  parental  command,  absence  of  social  pressure, 
and  absence  of  sexual  ignorance,  there  must  be  added, 
when  considering  the  lower  classes,  their  light  view  of  mar¬ 
riage  as  a  holy  ordinance  of  God.  Marriage,  to  them,  was 
respectable,  desirable,  and  legalized  a  carnal  union.  But 
there  is  the  most  abundant  testimony  that  among  the  lower 
classes  generally,  the  agricultural  peasants  especially,  mat¬ 
ing  often  preceded  marriage.  The  bride  instead  of  being 
given  as  a  virgin  to  a  religious  ordination  which  would  make 
her  fruitful,  had  already  given  herself,  and  asked  only  that 
the  path  upon  which  she  had  entered  should  be  made  a 
lawful  road  for  her  to  travel.  Extracts  from  Flexner’s 
Prostitution  in  Europe  will  furnish  sufficient  evidence  on  this 
point. 

“In  the  city,  such  informal  mating  of  industrial  workers 
of  opposite  sexes  is  common ;  the  shop  girl  contracts  an  al¬ 
liance  of  this  kind  with  a  clerk  of  her  own  class,  or  not  in¬ 
frequently  with  a  student  or  professional  man,  more  or  less 
above  her  in  rank. 

“The  incident  is  so  common  among  the  lower  classes, 
especially  in  the  rural  districts,  as  hardly  to  carry  any 
stigma  at  all. 


MODERN  CIVILIZATION 


241 


“‘Immoral  relations  before  marriage  among  the  lower 
classes  are  not  unusual  and  are  indulgently  regarded,’ 
writes  Charles  Booth  of  London.  Devon,  describing 
Glasgow  conditions,  observes  to  the  same  effect  that  ‘  girls 
do  not  seem  to  suffer  in  self-respect  nor  greatly  in  the  esteem 
of  others,  if  they  yield  themselves  to  the  lad  who  is  their 
sweetheart  for  the  time.  If  decency  is  observed,  morals 
are  taken  for  granted.’  On  the  Continent,  these  condi¬ 
tions  also  exist.  *  Extra-marital,  especially  pre-marital 
intercourse  is  everywhere  in  the  country  very  frequent,’ 
declares  Moll.  Of  certain  communities  in  Saxony  it  has 
been  deliberately  asserted  that  ‘  no  girl  over  sixteen  is  still  a 
virgin’;  the  German  peasant  is  declared  to  have  no  con¬ 
ception  of  the  meaning  of  chastity.”  (Flexner,  Prostitution 
in  Europe ,  Chap.  I.) 

The  conditions  given  were  not  however  quite  universal  as 
to  time  and  place.  When  Protestants  were  moved  by 
strong  religious  conviction,  convictions  approaching  fanati¬ 
cism,  strict  sexual  morality  was  for  that  period  and  in  that 
place  extended  to  the  landless  agricultural  class.  This 
phenomenon  appeared  among  the  Scotch  peasantry  in  the 
seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries.  It  did  not  stop 
sexual  immorality,  but  it  reprobated  and  severely  punished 
it.  Among  the  Scotch  peasantry  of  the  Covenanters,  public 
opinion  was  sternly  against  fornication,  and  treated  it  as  a 
crime,  whether  indulged  by  man  or  by  woman.  Here 
then  was  repeated  in  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth 
centuries  the  same  phenomenon  observable  in  the  second 
and  third  centuries  among  the  early  Christians  of  the 
Roman  Empire  of  the  same  social  class. 

124.  The  ordered  and  regular  famine  of  cities  promotes 
a  favorable  selection  of  mothers.  No  one  in  the  city  owns 
or  tills  land,  or  produces  food;  but  every  one  eats.  The 
group  nearest  to  the  point  of  starvation  is  least  able  to 
multiply  and  to  increase.  Most  of  its  members  must  be 
sterile,  or  must  have  few  children,  and  rear  few  of  those 
which  they  have.  As  starvation  begins  to  recede,  and 
abundance  to  approach,  members  of  the  group  are  more  and 
more  able  to  marry,  and  to  bring  increased  numbers  of 


242  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


offspring  to  maturity.  Finally,  in  those  urban  groups 
where  abundance  is  assured,  fecundity  is  the  most  important 
factor  in  augmenting  the  numbers  of  the  group.  During 
the  two  centuries  from  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  to  the 
middle  of  the  nineteenth,  food  exercised  a  strong  influ¬ 
ence  over  the  numbers  of  the  urban  middle  and  lower 
classes. 

In  the  city,  food  is  not  produced  or  obtained  directly  by 
labor,  nor  even  by  barter.  It  is  to  be  had  for  money,  and 
all  the  different  ways  of  getting  money  are  equally  service¬ 
able  in  procuring  food;  for  money  gets  food.  Money  is  to 
be  had  not  by  labor  alone  but  by  trade,  commerce,  ingen¬ 
uity,  enterprise,  professional  and  intellectual  employments. 
Money,  moreover,  may  be  saved,  which  food  may  not.  So 
that  a  man  who  can  not  live  on  the  harvest  of  ten  years 
ago  or  fifty  years  ago,  may  nevertheless  live  very  well  on 
the  money  earned  then  by  himself,  his  father,  or  his  grand¬ 
father,  because  it  is  equally  serviceable  in  buying  food  to¬ 
day.  Hence,  providence  and  thrift,  virtues  of  no  use  to 
slaves  or  serfs,  and  of  little  use  to  landless  laborers  in  the 
fields,  become  a  transcendant  benefit  to  the  landless  wage 
earners  of  the  cities.  These  virtues,  alone,  are  almost 
enough  to  determine  their  numbers.  With  these  virtues 
they  may  survive  and  increase.  Without  them,  even  the 
greatest  fecundity  wages  a  losing  battle  with  want. 

The  group  whose  cold  women  are  made  fruitful  gains  an 
important  advantage  in  the  getting  and  saving  of  money. 
Successive  generations  of  such  a  group  continuously  im¬ 
prove,  their  nervous  organization  is  steadily  augmented,  and 
intellect  becomes  more  and  more  the  master  of  their  emo¬ 
tions.  Of  the  multitude  of  ways  of  getting  money,-  all  the 
most  lucrative  will  be  found  occupied  and  enjoyed  by  the 
members  of  this  group.  They  labor  not  much  with  their 
hands  or  their  backs ;  but  they  will  be  found  directing  trade 
and  commerce,  masters  of  works  and  mills,  and  leaders  in 
professional  and  intellectual  attainments.  And  their  ad¬ 
vantage  in  gaining  money  is  extended  to  saving  it.  Mar- 


MODERN  CIVILIZATION 


243 


riage  for  money  secures  an  immediate  and  direct  advantage 
to  their  descendants.  But,  beyond  this,  a  continuous 
augmentation  of  the  intellect,  so  that  it  is  more  than  a 
match  for  the  emotions,  furnishes  their  descendants  with  a 
weapon  and  a  shield  against  temptation.  In  a  city  given 
to  drunkenness,  gluttony  and  lust,  they  can  live  pure  and 
unworldly  lives,  making  much  money  and  saving  much, 
spending  it  in  godly  ways  but  not  in  riotous  living. 

The  famine  of  the  cities,  therefore,  makes  food  an  im¬ 
portant  factor  in  the  survival  of  groups ;  food  is  obtained  by 
money;  the  group  which  exercises  a  favorable  selection  of 
motherhood  is  best  able  to  obtain  money  and  to  save  it; 
hence  the  ordered  and  regular  famine  of  cities  promotes  the 
survival  and  increase  of  this  group. 

125.  It  is  very  different  with  the  landless  agricultural 
laborer.  He  obtains  food  by  producing  it,  and  labors  not 
with  his  head,  but  with  his  hands.  Where  the  nervous  or¬ 
ganization  of  any  of  this  group  is  greatly  augmented,  they 
leave  agricultural  labor  altogether,  and  seek  at  once  the 
towns,  where  increased  intellectual  powers  are  better  re¬ 
warded.  The  class  which  still  labors  on  the  land  is  neces¬ 
sarily  not  intellectual.  Fecundity  is  far  more  important 
than  intellect  for  maintaining  and  increasing  their  numbers. 
Hence  this  class  generally  descends  from  prolific  women  of 
lower  nervous  organization  and  who  bear  children  with 
smaller  heads. 

Famine,  natural  and  perennial  in  cities,  is  in  the  country 
an  unnatural  and  unusual  calamity.  It  is  due  to  a  catas¬ 
trophe — perhaps  to  invasion,  drought,  flood,  or  other  visita¬ 
tion.  During  these  two  centuries  of  which  we  have  been 
speaking  (from  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  to  the  middle 
of  the  nineteenth),  such  famines  occurred  repeatedly  in  the 
country  districts  of  Europe,  covering  areas  of  various  size. 
Taine  supposes  that,  in  1715,  one-third  of  the  French 
peasants,  amounting  to  six  millions,  perished  from  hunger 
and  destitution. 

Against  these  country  famines,  intellect  and  ability  to 


244  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


resist  temptation,  are  neither  a  weapon  nor  a  shield. 
People  perish  not  from  extravagance  or  drink;  and  not 
from  the  want  of  enterprise,  or  ingenuity,  or  industry,  or 
steady  habits,  or  any  of  the  virtues  which  in  the  city  are  so 
richly  rewarded.  In  the  country,  famine  means  dearth, 
and  the  peasants  perish  without  psychological  selection. 
When  the  famine  has  passed  and  plenty  returns,  the  coun¬ 
try  is  quickly  repeopled;  and,  in  the  process  of  repeopling 
it,  there  is  an  important  physiological  selection.  The 
agricultural  peasantry  is  repeopled  first  and  easiest  by  the 
most  prolific  mothers.  It  is  not  cold  women,  bearing  pain¬ 
fully  offspring  of  augmented  nervous  organization,  but 
ardent  women  bearing  easily  children  with  smaller  heads, 
that  will  soonest  fill  the  deserted  fields. 

This  was  very  apparent  in  the  decline  of  the  German 
peasantry  which  followed  the  Thirty  Years’  War.  One 
hundred  years  earlier,  in  Luther’s  day,  a  strong  spirit  of  re¬ 
bellion  was  shown.  The  German  peasants  revolted  against 
both  the  Church  and  the  aristocracy.  In  the  Thirty  Years’ 
War,  much  of  Germany  was  laid  entirely  waste,  and  became 
a  desert;  and  the  population  is  supposed  to  have  been  re¬ 
duced  from  twenty  million  to  six  million.  The  destruction 
of  so  many  people  by  a  non-selective  catastrophe  of  this  mag¬ 
nitude,  left  Germany  to  be  repeopled  by  its  most  prolific 
women.  This  is  a  physiological  selection  that  follows  rural 
famine  with  mathematical  certainty.  Accordingly,  the 
German  peasant  one  hundred  years  after  the  Thirty  Years’ 
War  was  inferior  to  the  peasant  of  Luther’s  time.  He 
was  more  easily  kept  in  subjection,  was  sold  as  a  hireling 
to  alien  princes,  and  was  emancipated  from  serfdom  later 
than  the  peasantry  of  any  other  part  of  Protestant 
Europe. 

A  comparison  therefore  of  the  effects  of  urban  famine 
and  of  rural  famine  shows : 

I.  Urban  famine  is  selective;  and  affords  a  continuous 
numerical  advantage  to  the  group  whose  cold  women  are 
fruitful. 


MODERN  CIVILIZATION 


245 


II.  Rural  famine  is  not  selective;  but  in  repeopling 
country  districts  after  famine,  advantage  is  on  the  side  of 
the  ardent  and  prolific  woman. 

126.  The  rise  of  the  urban  middle  class  changed  the 
effect  of  woman’s  impudicity  upon  both  the  numbers  and 
character  of  posterity.  In  the  early  classifications  of  so¬ 
ciety,  before  the  rise  of  large  towns,  lewd  women  could 
easily  be  prolific,  and  must  often  have  been  more  prolific 
than  chaste  women.  Among  the  landless  peasantry  of 
every  age  and  race,  pregnancy  and  childbirth  have  been 
so  easy  and  natural  as  to  cause  little  interruption  in  woman’s 
daily  life  and  labor.  Therefore,  the  difficulties  of  such 
women  in  obtaining  a  livelihood  for  themselves  have  never 
been  greatly  increased  by  the  coming  of  offspring,  and,  in¬ 
deed,  they  usually  succeed  in  securing  a  livelihood  for  their 
offspring  as  well.  The  fecundity  of  self-supporting  women 
of  various  degrees  of  lightness,  may  be  inferred  from  a 
number  of  instances  given  in  the  Bible. 

I.  The  incestuous  origin  of  Moab  and  Ammon.  (Gene¬ 
sis,  Chap.  XIX.) 

II.  The  preservation  of  Hagar  and  Ishmael,  and  the 
increase  of  Ishmael  into  a  great  nation.  (Genesis,  Chap. 
XXL) 

III.  Rebecca’s  complaint  of  the  daughters  of  Heth. 
(Genesis,  Chap.  XXVII.) 

IV.  The  transaction  between  Judah  and  Tamar. 
(Genesis  XXXVIII.) 

V.  The  fecundity  of  the  Hebrew  women  under  bondage 
in  Egypt.  (Exodus,  Chap.  I.) 

VI.  Their  fecundity  after  they  have  abandoned  chas¬ 
tity  and  become  lewd  women.  (See  Isaiah,  Jeremiah, 
Ezekiel,  Hosea,  Amos.) 

Add  to  the  Biblical  evidence  the  various  Greek  stories  of 
the  conception  and  birth  of  heroes,  for  whom  divine  pa¬ 
ternity  was  alleged  for  want  of  an  earthly  father ;  and  of  the 
nymphs  and  satyrs  whose  traits  are  rememberecLin  our  words 
“nymphomaniac”  and  “satyriasis.”  In  Rome,  according 


246  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


to  Livy,  there  were  courtesans  before  money  was  coined.1 
And  the  proletariat  of  early  Rome  must  have  lived  under 
conditions  where  lewd  women  were  prolific. 

After  the  fall  of  Roman  civilization  these  conditions  were 
repeated  in  Western  Christendom.  Repeated  invasions 
destroyed  houses,  farm-steads,  and  crops,  and  drove  away 
cattle,  so  that  vast  areas  of  Western  Europe  were  reforested. 
Vast  populations  were  reduced  to  want  and  misery,  and  in 
many  cases  quite  extinguished  by  great  famines.  The  sur¬ 
vivors  were  “miserably  fed  on  beans,  vetches,  roots,  even 
the  bark  of  trees.”  (Draper,  Intellectual  Development  of 
Europe ,  Vol.  II,  Chap.  II.)  Under  these  conditions,  the 
land  was  repeopled  chiefly  by  women  to  whom  chastity  was 
the  least  and  last  of  considerations.  Physical  strength, 
natural  desires,  and  fecundity,  were  the  chief  factors  in  the 
selection  of  mothers.  Posterity,  therefore,  descended  from 
women  of  low  nervous  organization,  who  bore  easily,  with¬ 
out  pain  or  danger,  large  numbers  of  children  with  smaller 
heads.  And  for  the  most  numerous  classes  of  the  popula¬ 
tion  this  condition  must  have  extended  in  point  of  time 
throughout  all  the  middle  ages,  until  the  rise  of  considerable 
towns. 

It  has  already  been  noticed  that  when  the  Christian 
population  of  Europe  was  classified  only  in  respect  to  its 
relations  to  the  soil,  the  “bordel”  or  bordar’s  hut  became 
known  as  an  abode  of  harlots.  It  is  inferable  that  the  num¬ 
bers  of  serfs  and  villeins  were  continuously  replenished  by 
lewd  and  prolific  women.  As  more  and  more  land  was 
enclosed,  and  the  ability  to  obtain  subsistence  became  an 
increasing  factor,  the  numerical  advantage  of  mere  fecund¬ 
ity  declined.  Lewd  women,  however,  continued,  down  to 
the  nineteenth  century,  to  furnish  a  part  of  the  landless 
peasant  population.  Not  only  is  this  clear  from  the  ac¬ 
counts  of  peasant  morals  everywhere,  and  from  the  statistics 

1  Livy,  Bk.  II,  Chap.  XVIII,  recounts  a  quarrel  over  some  courtesans. 
In  Bk.  IV,  Chap.  LX,  it  is  stated  that  “coined  money  was  not  yet 
introduced.” 


MODERN  CIVILIZATION 


247 


of  illegitimate  birth,  but  it  is  set  forth  with  numerical  exact¬ 
ness  in  Mr.  Dugdale ’s  account  of  several  generations  of  the 
Jukes.  Dugdale  and  his  successor  Esterbrook  trace  for 
upward  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  years  the  American  de¬ 
scendants  of  six  sisters  (called  “Jukes”),  who  were  born 
between  the  years  1740  and  1770.  Five  of  the  six  women 
were  fruitful,  three  out  of  the  five  certainly  lewd.  Fifty- 
two  per  cent  of  all  the  women  traced  by  Dugdale  were  har¬ 
lots.  In  this  period,  there  were  found  over  two  thousand 
descendants.  But,  besides  this  detailed  study  of  the 
numerical  results  of  female  lewdness  in  a  single  family  con¬ 
nection,  it  is  noticeable  generally  that  nearly  every  fertile 
countryside  in  old  countries  contains  one  or  more  women 
notoriously  immoral,  but  nevertheless  prolific. 

127.  The  rise  of  large  towns  and  the  growth  of  capital, 
industry,  and  the  wage  system,  exercise  powerful  restraints 
upon  the  fecundity  of  lewd  women.  Vice  is  commercial¬ 
ized,  and  the  prolific  harlot  of  the  countryside  changes  to 
the  sterile  prostitute  of  the  city,  whose  first  care  is  not  to 
bear  offspring.  “  Prostitution,”  says  Flexner,  “  is  an  urban 
problem,  its  precise  character  largely  dependent  on  the  size 
of  the  town.”  All  urban  prostitution,  however,  is  alike  in 
sterilizing  the  prostitute.  She  manages  by  the  wages  of  her 
calling  to  support  herself.  But  it  is  seldom  that  she  can  rear 
even  one  daughter  to  maturity,  much  less  a  half  dozen,  and 
it  is  universally  true  that  the  ranks  of  urban  prostitutes  are 
not  recruited  from  their  own  offspring,  but  from  the  off¬ 
spring  of  others.  It  is  in  the  towns  that  lewd  women  are 
effectively  sterilized. 

In  the  pages  of  Shakespeare  and  of  Steele,  the  reader  will 
find  a  well  drawn  difference  between  the  rural  or  semi-rural 
harlot,  and  the  urban  prostitute.  The  former  is  typified  by 
Doll  Tearsheet  and  the  “  bona  deas ”  of  Justice  Shallow’s 
Oxford  days.  In  Shakespeare’s  time,  England  was  still 
rural,  and  London  just  beginning  to  be  a  large  town.  When 
Steele  wrote  the  Spectator  (in  1711)  London  had  become  a 
city,  and  prostitution  was  well  established.  His  descrip- 


248  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


tion  of  the  barren  misery  of  the  young  woman  “newly  come 
upon  the  town”  is  very  different  from  any  Shakespearean 
picture  of  English  life. 

As  the  cities  grew,  the  numbers  of  prostitutes  in  propor¬ 
tion  to  the  population  became  enormous.  In  Besant’s 
London  (Eighteenth  Century)  they  are  repeatedly  described 
as  being  always  in  evidence — “the  woman  in  scarlet  was 
everywhere/’ — “the  universal  presence  of  the  courtesan.” 
Like  the  nuns  of  the  middle  ages,  the  urban  prostitutes  of 
the  eighteenth  and  nineteenth  centuries  did  not  constitute 
a  true  group,  for  they  were  not  reproductive.  The  inmates 
of  the  cloister  and  the  brothel  were  alike  sterilized,  and 
alike  recruited  from  the  remainder  of  the  population;  the 
difference  being  that  the  cloister  sterilized  the  pious  and 
chaste,  the  brothel  the  profane  and  lewd.  So,  also,  be¬ 
tween  rustic  and  urban  harlotry  the  difference  was  that  the 
former  were  prolific  and  multiplied  their  numbers,  whereas 
the  latter  were  sterile  and  continuously  subtracted  lewdness 
from  posterity.  When  purity  was  continuously  excised  by 
the  convent  and  impurity  multiplied  by  the  rustic  harlot,  a 
low  standard  of  sexual  morals  ought  to  result.  Accord¬ 
ingly,  it  is  not  surprising  to  find  that  in  the  middle  ages  “a 
sufficient  supply  of  women  was  imported  by  way  of  enter¬ 
taining  the  delegates  at  Church  congresses.”  (Flexner, 
Prostitution  in  Europe\  Bloch,  Vol.  I,  pp.  710-712,  gives 
details  and  authorities.) 

For  about  three  centuries,  now,  the  conventual  steriliza¬ 
tion  of  purity  has  ceased ;  altogether  in  Protestant  countries, 
very  largely  in  the  Roman  communion.  For  two  or  three 
centuries,  urban  prostitution  has,  on  a  great  scale,  been  con¬ 
tinuously  and  effectively  sterilizing  impurity.  Accordingly, 
improvement  in  the  ideals  and  practices  of  sexual  purity 
should  be  very  great.  Conditions  making  for  the  growth  of 
purity  have  been  at  their  best  in  England,  where  religious 
houses  were  abolished  in  the  sixteenth  century,  and  where 
the  urban,  industrial  organization  of  society  on  a  wage¬ 
earning  basis  has  been  carried  to  the  greatest  extent. 


MODERN  CIVILIZATION 


249 


Flexner  notices,  therefore,  that  improvement  in  sexual 
purity  has  been  greater  in  England  than  anywhere  on  the 
Continent.  He  excepts  England  from  the  universal  in¬ 
continence  which  he  ascribes  to  Continental  Europe;  and 
in  a  foot-note  he  adds  the  following  testimony : 

“Family  and  religious  life  are  so  differently  organized 
that  there  is  a  very  strong  presumption  that  correct  living 
is  in  certain  strata  of  society  distinctly  more  probable  than 
on  the  Continent.  Organizations  like  the  White  Cross 
Societies  and  The  Alliance  of  Honor  testify  to  the  existence 
of  sound  sentiment  and  promote  sound  practice.” 

Credit  for  an  equal  improvement  may  be  given  to  a  large 
American  population  of  English  descent. 

128.  For  convenience  in  considering  the  evidence  these 
three  classes  of  society  will  be  numbered : 

I.  The  princely  caste. 

II.  The  urban  middle  class  including  the  lesser  land¬ 
lords. 

III.  The  landless  agricultural  peasant. 

The  evidence  just  examined  covers  the  period  of  about 
two  centuries  from  the  seventeenth  to  the  nineteenth  cen¬ 
tury.  Class  II  was  continuously  advancing,  Class  III 
about  stationary,  and  Class  I  probably  falling  back.  In 
respect  to  the  influence  exerted  by  marriage,  famine  and 
prostitution  on  each  of  these  classes,  the  conclusions  war¬ 
ranted  by  the  evidence  may  be  summarized  as  follows : 

I.  In  respect  to  marriage  Class  II  had  the  advantage. 
The  marriage  customs  of  Class  III  tended  not  at  all  to  en¬ 
force  maternity  upon  cold  women,  but  rather  invited  them 
to  sterility,  if  they  could  abide  it.  The  marriage  customs 
of  Class  I  were  superficially  much  the  same  as  of  Class  II  in 
respect  that  the  wishes  of  brides  were  not  consulted,  and 
the  intimate  personal  courtship  of  Class  III  was  not  per¬ 
mitted.  But  the  daughters  of  Class  I  had  a  narrow  range 
of  eligible  husbands.  Property  was  usually  secured  to 
them  by  jointure,  so  that  they  were  in  a  degree  independent 


250  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


of  the  husband’s  support;  and  custom  sanctioned  great 
looseness  in  the  husband’s  conduct,  so  that  cold  women  of 
the  princely  caste  easily  escaped  virile  pressure.  In 
Class  II,  girls  were  married  with  the  same  ignorance 
and  the  same  obedience  to  parental  command  as  in  Class  I ; 
after  marriage  they  were  more  dependent  upon  and  obedi¬ 
ent  to  their  husbands  than  wives  of  Class  I.  And  the  moral 
standards  of  pious  and  respectable  bourgeois  made  their 
wives  fruitful. 

II.  In  respect  to  famine,  the  urban  middle  class  had 
likewise  the  advantage.  They  inherited  no  lands,  and  the 
public  treasury  taxed  instead  of  feeding  them.  Class  I, 
living  chiefly  on  inherited  lands,  and  on  the  power  to  tax, 
was  not  menaced  by  famine  as  Class  II  always  was.  As 
between  Class  II  and  Class  III,  both  were  threatened  by 
famine;  but  Class  II  could  escape  urban  famine  by  an  aug¬ 
mented  nervous  organization  which  would  be  useless  to 
Class  III  when  confronted  with  rural  famine.  For  Class 
II,  famine  was  either  perennial  or  was  escaped  altogether. 
For  Class  III,  famine  was  catastrophic;  and  after  its  visita¬ 
tion  the  most  ardent  and  prolific  women  first  repeopled  the 
land. 

III.  In  respect  to  prostitution,  also,  Class  II  had  the 
advantage.  In  Class  I,  the  traditions  and  mode  of  life 
sanctioned  a  continuous  espionage  over  marriageable 
daughters.  Those  who  might  otherwise  have  abandoned 
chastity  and  duty  were  protected  by  espionage  from  tempta¬ 
tion,  seduction,  and  ruin.  In  Class  II,  there  was  no  like 
protection.  Daughters  of  this  class  who  forgot  their  duty 
were  easily  led  astray.  Unchastity  in  Class  II  always  led 
to  sterility.  In  Class  III  unchastity  was  almost  as  pro¬ 
lific  as  chastity,  and  could  not  only  replenish  but  even 
multiply  its  own  numbers. 

129.  Thus,  in  the  period  of  selection  which  led  to  the 
nineteenth  century,  and  exercised  immediate  influence 
over  the  spiritual  stature  of  its  inhabitants,  the  evidence 
shows  that  the  best  selection  of  mothers  was  to  be  found 


MODERN  CIVILIZATION 


251 


in  the  urban  middle  class.  In  this  class,  there  united  to  the 
highest  degree  all  the  factors  which  would  enforce  fruitful 
maternity  upon  cold  women  of  high  nervous  organization. 
They  are  found  in  lesser  degree  in  the  princely  caste;  and 
hardly  at  all  in  the  landless  agricultural  peasants.  It  would 
be  expected  therefore  that  the  continuous  favorable  selec¬ 
tion  of  mothers  in  the  urban  middle  class  would  result  in  a 
marked  development  of  genius  in  that  class.  The  nervous 
organization  of  posterity  would  be  augmented,  and  children 
with  larger  heads  would  be  born.  The  evidence  exactly 
fulfills  this  mathematical  expectation. 

“In  considering  to  what  social  class  the  1030  eminent 
British  men  and  women  on  our  list  belong,  we  seek  to  as¬ 
certain  the  position  of  the  fathers : 


Upper  classes  (or  ‘good  family’) .  154  18.5% 

Yeomen  and  farmers .  50  6% 

Church .  139  16.7% 

Law .  59  7-i% 

Army .  35  4-2% 

Navy  (and  sea  generally) .  16  1.9% 

Medicine .  3°  3*6% 

Miscellaneous  professions .  65  7-8% 

Officials,  clerks .  27  3.2% 

Commercial .  156  18.8% 

Crafts . 77  9-2% 

Artisans  and  unskilled .  21  2.5% 


“  ‘  Miscelleaneous  professions’  include  20  artists;  9  musi¬ 
cians  and  composers ;  1 6  actors ;  6  men  of  letters ;  4  engineers ; 
3  men  of  science;  7  school-masters. 

“Class  constitution  of  the  ordinary  population  in  Great 
Britain : 


Professional  classes .  446% 

Commercial  “  10*36% 

Industrial  “  10.90% 

Artisans  “  26.82% 

Labourers  “  47*46% 


“The  comparison  with  the  class  of  ability-producing  per¬ 
sons  is  interesting.  We  have  two  pyramids,  but  the  base 
of  the  one  corresponds  with  the  apex  of  the  other,  the  same 
inverted  relationship  existing  harmoniously  throughout. 


252  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


The  aristocratic  class  which  forms  the  foundation  of  the 
ability-producing  pyramid  (though  this  fact  is  slightly 
disguised  by  the  omission  from  my  list  of  hereditary  peers) 
forms  the  fine  and  invisible  apex  of  the  pyramid  constituted 
by  the  ordinary  population.  The  professional  class  which 
(often  in  close  association  with  the  aristocratic  class)  forms 
the  great  bulk  of  the  one  pyramid  still  merely  appears  as 
the  apex  of  the  other.  The  commercial  class  also  bulks 
more  largely  in  the  ability-producing  pyramid,  but  to  a 
much  less  extravagant  extent.  The  industrial  class  (or 
craftsmen)  which  comes  in  the  middle  furnishes  about  the 
same  proportion  in  each  case,  while  the  artisans  and  labour¬ 
ers  who  form  nearly  three-fourths  of  the  general  population, 
appear  among  the  ability-producing  persons  as  a  vanishing 
point  almost  as  negligible  as  the  aristocratic  class  is  among 
the  general  population.”  (Havelock  Ellis,  A  Study  of 
British  Genius ,  Chap.  Ill,  Tit. — Social  Class.) 

130.  It  is  noticeable,  in  all  countries  and  in  all  ages,  that, 
in  those  classes  of  the  population  where  mating  is  natural 
and  by  or  with  woman’s  desire,  genius  does  not  appear. 
This  is  by  very  much  the  greatest  part  of  the  world’s  popu¬ 
lation,  and  it  has  been  bearing  offspring  and  renewing  its 
numbers  for  centuries.  In  all  this  time,  the  groups  which 
have  enforced  maternity  upon  cold  women,  have  been  very 
few,  and  have  been  numerically  insignificant.  Yet  in  these 
groups  all  the  genius  has  been  born.  It  would  be  expected, 
therefore,  that  the  more  numerous  and  prolific  class  where 
genius  is  not  born,  would  have  mothers  of  lower  nervous 
organization,  bearing  children  with  smaller  heads.  The 
result  would  be  the  same  normal,  easy,  and  painless  child¬ 
birth  that  is  found  in  other  mammals.  Women  would 
be  prolific  with  the  same  natural  happiness  as  ewes. 

The  evidence  on  this  point  is  so  abundant  that  it  hardly 
needs  to  be  cited.  I  recall  the  following: 

“And  the  midwives  said  unto  Pharaoh,  Because  the 
Hebrew  women  are  not  as  the  Egyptian  women;  for  they 
are  lively,  and  are  delivered  ere  the  mid  wives  come  in  unto 
them.”  (Exodus,  Chap.  I,  verse  19.) 


MODERN  CIVILIZATION 


253 


“The  painfull  throwes  of  childbearing,  deemed  both  by 
Physitians,  and  by  the  word  of  God  to  be  verie  great,  and 
which  our  women  passe  with  so  many  ceremonies,  there  are 
whole  Nations  that  make  no  reckoning  of  them.  I  omit  to 
speake  of  the  Lacedemonian  women;  but  come  we  to  the 
Swizzers  of  our  Infanterie,  what  change  doe  you  perceive  in 
them?  But  that  trudging  and  trotting  after  their  hus¬ 
bands,  to  day  you  see  them  carrie  the  child  about  their 
necks,  which  but  yesterday  they  bare  in  their  wombe.” 
{Montaigne' s  Essays.  Florio’s  Translation.  First  Book, 
Chap.  XL.) 

“When  I  awoke  in  the  morning  and  made  my  rounds 
through  the  camp,  I  found  a  squaw  had  been  delivered  of 
beautiful  twins  during  the  night,  and  I  saw  the  same  squaw 
at  work  tanning  deer-skins.  She  had  cut  two  vines  at  the 
roots  of  opposite  trees,  and  made  a  cradle  of  bark,  in  which 
the  new-born  ones  were  wafted  to  and  fro  with  a  push  of 
her  hand,  while  from  time  to  time  she  gave  them  the  breast, 
and  was  apparently  unconcerned  as  if  the  event  had  not 
taken  place.”  (Buchanan,  Life  of  Audubon,  Chap.  VII.) 

“One  of  the  women,  who  had  been  leading  two  of  our 
pack  horses,  halted  at  a  rivulet  about  a  mile  behind  and 
sent  on  the  two  horses  by  a  female  friend.  On  inquiring  of 
Cameahwait  the  cause  of  her  detention,  he  answered  with 
great  apparent  unconcern,  that  she  had  just  stopped  to  lie 
in,  but  would  soon  overtake  us.  In  fact,  we  were  aston¬ 
ished  to  see  her  in  about  an  hour’s  time  come  on  with  her 
new-born  infant,  and  pass  us  on  her  way  to  the  camp, 
seemingly  in  perfect  health.”  {Journal  of  the  Lewis  and 
Clarke  Expedition.) 

“They  have  to  work  as  hard  as  the  men  and  get  less  for 
it;  they  have  to  produce  offspring,  quite  regardless  of  times 
and  seasons,  and  the  general  fitness  of  things,  they  have  to 
do  this  as  expeditiously  as  possible  so  that  they  may  not 
unduly  interrupt  the  work  in  hand;  and  nobody  helps  them, 
notices  them,  or  cares  about  them,  least  of  all  the  husband. 
It  is  quite  a  usual  thing  to  see  them  working  in  the  fields  in 
the  morning  and  working  again  in  the  afternoon,  having 
in  the  interval  produced  a  baby.  The  baby  is  left  to  an  old 
woman  whose  duty  it  is  to  look  after  babies  collectively. 
...  A  woman  arrived  alone,  and  taking  up  a  spade, 
began  to  dig.  She  grinned  cheerfully  at  us  as  she  made  a 
curtesy,  and  the  overseer  remarked  that  she  had  just  been 
back  to  the  house  and  had  a  baby.”  {Elisabeth  and  Her 
German  Garden.) 


254  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


The  industrious  reader  will  add  to  the  above  as  many 
more  instances  as  he  chooses. 

In  contrast  to  the  foregoing,  there  is  the  severe  labor, 
danger  and  frequent  death  which  comes  with  childbirth  in 
all  groups  of  augmented  nervous  organization,  where  genius 
is  produced.  Ancient  examples  of  this  are  found  in  Rachel, 
mother  of  Joseph,  who  died  in  her  second  childbed;  the 
miscarriages  recited  by  Plutarch,  which  were  so  frequent 
in  Rome  at  the  period  of  Publicola;  and  the  “Csesarean 
section,’'  resorted  to  in  ancient  as  well  as  modern  times,  for 
the  supernatural  delivery  of  offspring.  In  his  Natural  His¬ 
tory,  Pliny  asserts  that  the  first  of  the  Caesars  was  thus 
delivered.1  Plutarch  wrote  the  lives  of  nine  eminent 
Romans  of  the  first  century  b.c. — Sylla,  Lucullus,  Crassus, 
Pompey,  Caesar,  Cato,  Cicero,  Antony,  Marcus  Brutus. 
In  these  nine  biographies,  no  less  than  three  women  are 
recorded  as  having  died  in  childbed — Emilia,  daughter  of 
Scaurus  and  Metella,  and  wife  of  Pompey;  Julia,  daughter 
of  Julius  Caesar,  wife  of  Pompey;  Tullia,  daughter  of  Cicero, 
wife  of  Lentulus.  Three  deaths  in  childbirth,  in  the  biog¬ 
raphies  of  nine  men,  are  a  high  percentage. 

In  the  Italian  Renaissance  death  in  childbed  became  a 
frequent  and  familiar  incident  in  the  same  class  of  society, 
and  at  the  same  period  of  time  that  genius  begins  to  appear. 
“Records  in  the  trader’s  diaries  of  death  in  childbed  recur 
frequently  and  make  sad  reading.”  But  “it  was  some 
consolation  to  an  expectant  mother  to  know  that  if  she  died 
in  childbed,  her  child  was  certain  of  a  brilliant  career.” 
(Boulting,  Women  in  Italy,  Chap.  VIII.)  In  modern 
times,  and  in  those  classes  of  society  where  an  augmented 
nervous  organization  produces  occasional  examples  of 
genius,  childbirth  has  become  an  exceedingly  difficult, 
dangerous,  and  sometimes  fatal  event  requiring  the  most 

1  Shakespeare  ascribes  the  same  supernatural  birth  to  Macduff. 
“Despair  they  charm;  and  let  the  angel  whom  thou  still  hast  served 
tell  thee,  Macduff  was  from  his  mother’s  womb  untimely  ript.”  Mac¬ 
beth,  Act  V,  Scene  VIII. 


MODERN  CIVILIZATION 


255 


skilful  medical  attendance.  Its  pains  and  labor  are  pro¬ 
tracted  for  hours,  and  anesthesia  in  one  form  or  another 
has  been  resorted  to  for  the  mother’s  relief. 

There  is  much  ancient  testimony  to  an  early  observation 
of  mankind  that  women  of  high  nervous  organization  are 
sexually  cold  and  bear  children  with  difficulty  and  danger. 
Included  in  this  testimony  there  may  be  cited  the  dream  of 
Joseph  whose  mother  died  in  her  second  childbed,  and  who 
told  his  father  and  brethren  that  they  should  all  bow  down 
before  him;  the  myth  of  Circe,  which  showed  the  Homeric 
belief  that  mating  with  ardent  women  who  invited  easy  and 
promiscuous  intercourse,  would  beget  an  inferior  posterity 
and  turn  men  into  swine;  and  the  belief  repeated  over  and 
over  again  in  distant  lands  and  different  ages,  that  genius 
was  born  of  a  virgin.  The  persistent  repetition  of  this  be¬ 
lief  in  a  supernatural  or  immaculate  conception,  is  strong 
testimony  to  the  impression  of  “spiritual  virginity’’  in¬ 
variably  attaching  to  the  mothers  of  supermen.  Human 
experience  long  ago  divined  a  fact  which  science  puts  into 
the  brief  formula : 

Natural  mating ,  natural  birth,  natural  man. 

Supernatural  mating ,  supernatural  birth ,  superman. 

13 1.  Still  further  evidence  of  the  fact  that  the  compul¬ 
sory  maternity  of  cold  women  promotes  the  growth  of 
genius  in  a  group,  is  afforded  by  history,  and  should  be  here 
cited.  Marriage  customs  which  continue  for  generation 
after  generation  to  make  cold  women  fruitful,  should,  in  a 
rising  civilization,  lead  to  an  increase  and  diffusion  of 
genius  throughout  the  group.  In  those  three  civilizations 
which  were  founded  on  monogamous  marriage,  and  grew 
slowly  through  the  continuous  accretion  of  sexual  coldness, 
evidence  of  this  truth  is  to  be  found.  Among  the  Greeks 
who  followed  Athenian  marriage  customs,  the  diffusion  of 
genius  in  the  fifth  century  B.c.  has  been  already  noticed. 

After  the  strict  monogamous  marriage  of  early  Rome 
had  extended  from  the  patriciate  to  other  orders  of  the 
Roman  populace,  a  marked  increase  of  ability,  leadership, 


256  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


and  genius  followed.  Instead  of  being  confined  to  the 
patriciate,  great  talents  arose  among  the  plebeians.  Ability 
was  so  widespread,  that  the  Romans  could  change  their 
commanders  each  year,  settle  the  question  of  command  and 
government  by  drawing  lots  and  still  put  into  the  field  mili¬ 
tary  leaders  excelling  those  of  any  of  their  enemies. 

In  England,  following  the  Reformation,  when  Christian 
piety  and  the  strict  morals  of  family  life  had  increased  the 
propagation  of  sexual  coldness  through  various  extensive 
groups,  the  resulting  diffusion  of  genius  is  very  plain.  In 
the  governing  classes,  the  custom  of  buying  and  selling  com¬ 
missions  in  the  army  and  navy  was,  on  the  face  of  it,  almost 
as  unwise  as  the  Roman  selection  of  commanders  by  lot; 
yet  the  proportion  of  ability  throughout  the  “governing 
classes”  (these  were  in  succession  the  groups  which  en¬ 
forced  maternity  upon  their  cold  women)  wras  so  great  that 
England  continued  for  two  centuries  to  command  a  high 
place  as  a  military  and  naval  power.  Outside  the  govern¬ 
ing  classes,  like  evidence  is  found  in  the  enormous  growth  of 
science,  invention,  enterprise,  commerce,  exploration,  con¬ 
quest,  and  settlement  of  new  lands.  Young  men,  sprung 
from  nowhere,  are  found  suddenly  leading  armies  to  victory, 
adding  to  the  sum  of  human  knowledge,  or  sailing  boats 
against  wind  and  tide.  In  hll  these  instances  the  diffusion 
of  genius  marks  an  upward  growth  of  civilization  in  the 
group. 

132.  When  decline  begins,  the  process  should  be  re¬ 
versed.  Genius  should  no  longer  be  widely  diffused.  As 
the  marriage  customs  which  enforce  maternity  upon  cold 
women  fall  into  abeyance  and  disuse,  the  number  of 
geniuses  should  diminish ;  but  it  should  also  follow  by  mathe¬ 
matical  law  that  while  genius  tended  to  concentrate  in  a 
few,  those  few  would  be  greater  geniuses  than  any  that  had 
preceded  them.  In  the  families  in  which  they  would  be 
born  the  surviving  minority  of  cold  women  would  still  be 
fruitful.  Since  the  nervous  organization  is  augmented 
with  each  successive  cold  genetrix,  the  most  brilliant 


MODERN  CIVILIZATION 


257 


geniuses  of  the  group  should  be  displayed  just  before  genius 
begins  to  fail  altogether.  This  would  be  mathematically 
certain;  and  there  is  abundant  evidence  that  it  has  taken 
place  in  each  group. 

In  Israel,  after  the  bondage  in  Egypt,  genius  concen¬ 
trated  itself  in  one  family — Moses,  Aaron,  and  Miriam,  of 
the  tribe  of  Levi.  The  evidence  is  that  these  three — 
brothers  and  sister — were  endowed  with  a  nervous  organiza¬ 
tion  much  superior  to  that  of  the  rest  of  Israel.  An  in¬ 
herited  sexual  coldness  is  inferable  also  from  the  fact  that 
Miriam  never  married. 

In  Greece,  the  widest  diffusion  of  genius  was  in  the  fifth 
century  B.C.,  when  Galt  on  reckons  fourteen  geniuses  born  in 
Athens  alone.  A  century  later,  it  is  evident  that  genius 
was  less  diffused  but  rose  higher.  In  the  fourth  century 
B.C.,  Demosthenes  was  the  only  Athenian  genius,  and  found 
it  impossible  to  rouse  the  spirit  of  the  people  against  Philip. 
But  Hellenic  blood  in  this  century  gave  birth  to  Aristotle, 
Euclid,  and  Alexander  the  Great.  In  these  three,  genius 
is  found  reaching  a  greater  height  than  in  the  preceding 
century,  though  the  number  of  geniuses  is  fewer. 

In  Carthage,  the  extent  and  diffusion  of  genius  at  an 
earlier  period  is  unknown;  although  the  strength  of  the  city, 
the  extent  of  Phoenician  conquest  and  commerce,  and  the 
Phoenician  alphabet,  are  evidence  that  earlier  genius  was 
not  wanting.  In  Hannibal’s  time,  it  is  evident  that  the 
production  of  genius  had  been  reduced  to  a  single  family 
connection — Hannibal,  Hanno,  Hamilcar,  Hamilcar  Barca. 
Hannibal  was  the  greatest  genius  of  his  time,  either  in 
Carthage  or  elsewhere.  But  when  his  services  were  no 
longer  available,  all  competent  leadership  vanished,  and 
Carthage  perished. 

In  the  third  century  B.c.,  when  Carthaginian  genius  was 
concentrating  in  one  brilliant  incarnation,  Roman  genius 
was,  in  each  generation,  growing  more  diffused.  Rome  in 
the  last  Punic  war  was  able  to  avail  herself  of  more  compe¬ 
tent  leadership  than  in  the  first.  Genius  was  more  widely 


VOL.  I — 17 


258  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


diffused  in  the  patrician  order,  and  was  extending  to  the 
equestrian  order.  A  century  after  the  fall  of  Carthage 
the  diffusion  of  genius  in  the  Roman  patriciate  stopped. 
The  senate  became  cowardly,  venal,  and  corrupt.  The 
towering  genius  of  Julius  Caesar  appeared  in  accordance 
with  mathematical  law;  and  equally  so  the  genius  of  Oc- 
tavianus,  of  the  same  blood  through  the  female  line. 
Octavianus’  mother  was  the  niece,  his  grandmother  the 
sister,  his  great-grandmother  the  mother  of  Julius  Caesar. 
In  this  female  strain,  the  compulsory  maternity  of  cold 
women  continued  from  one  to  three  generations  longer  than 
in  most  of  the  patriciate.  Where  it  had  been  discontinued, 
the  patrician  order  no  longer  produced  genius  at  all ;  where 
it  was  continued,  genius  rose  to  its  greatest  height. 


CHAPTER  XII 


PRIVATE  PROPERTY 

133.  That  lower  nervous  organizations  are  more  prolific 
than  higher  nervous  organizations  is  a  universal  biological 
truth  attested  by  positive  evidence  and  inferable  from  the 
vast  differentiation  of  species.  It  is  a  truth  decreed  by 
mathematical  law;  since,  if  higher  nervous  organizations 
were  more  prolific  than  lower,  the  latter  could  not  exist. 
This  truth  extends  to  human  kind.  It  is  not  the  whole 
science  of  civilization,  but  it  is  a  constant  factor  which  must 
be  always  reckoned  with  and  never  forgotten. 

As  between  prolific  women  who  bear  easily,  without  pain 
or  danger,  children  with  small  heads,  and  cold  women  having 
an  augmented  nervous  organization,  who  bear  offspring 
only  with  great  labor,  pain,  and  danger,  it  is  plain  that 
mathematical  law  gives  to  the  former  a  perennial  and  con¬ 
stant  advantage  over  the  latter  in  respect  to  the  number 
of  her  descendants.  Other  things  being  equal,  the  Leah 
who  bears  seven  children  with  ease  and  avidity,  would,  at 
all  times  and  all  places,  people  the  earth  instead  of  the 
Rachel  who  bears  only  two  children  and  dies  in  travail. 
The  reader  may  choose  to  compute  the  numerical  difference, 
in  seven  generations,  between  the  descendants  of  women  as 
prolific  as  Leah,  and  the  descendants  of  women  of  the  type 
of  Rachel.  Such  figures,  however,  would  still  be  false;  for 
cold  women  typified  by  Rachel  can  be  preserved  only  when 
they  form  a  group  sufficiently  numerous  to  maintain  their 
strain  without  continuous  crossing  on  the  female  side  by 
the  ardent  type  of  Leah.  But,  if  the  offspring  of  both 
continue  for  some  generations  to  multiply  in  the  proportion 

259 


260  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


of  seven  descendants  of  Leah  to  two  of  Rachel,  the  type  of 
Rachel  will  cease  to  bear  any  numerical  proportion,  however 
small,  to  the  type  of  Leah.  It  will  not  be  as  two  to  seven, 
or  as  four  to  forty-nine,  or  as  eight  to  three  hundred  and 
forty-three.  Other  conditions  being  equal,  and  fecundity 
the  sole  factor  affecting  the  number  of  descendants,  the  type 
of  Rachel  will  be  extinguished  altogether.  In  a  marine 
environment,  where  such  equality  exists,  mathematical  law 
long  ago  accomplished  the  expected  result.  Codfish, 
herrings,  salmon,  sturgeon,  oysters,  and  the  other  denizens 
of  the  great  deep,  yield  eggs  by  the  millions  and  millions 
because  for  countless  ages  the  perfect  equality  of  other 
factors  has  forbidden  any  but  the  most  prolific  to  survive. 1 

Since  the  rise  of  civilization  is  due  to  the  birth  and  increase 
of  augmented  nervous  organizations;  and  since  these  can 
be  born  only  to  the  group  of  women  who  are  least  prolific; 
it  would  seem  at  first  blush  as  though  civilization  could  not 
rise  at  all.  Mathematical  law  would  seem  to  decree  on  land, 
as  in  the  sea,  the  increase  and  multiplication  of  the  most 
prolific — those  who  bear  children  with  smaller  heads.  Most 
human  history  testifies  to  the  numerical  advantages  of 
fecundity.  The  periods  of  time  are  short,  and  the  areas  of 
the  globe  are  small,  that  have  witnessed  the  numerical 
increase  of  augmented  nervous  organizations.  The  history 
of  the  greatest  numbers  of  mankind,  occupying  much  the 
largest  area  of  the  globe,  for  much  the  longest  period  of 
time,  is  simply  a  history  of  the  numerical  advantage  and 
continuous  triumph  of  the  most  prolific.  It  is  only  in  rising 
civilizations  that  mathematical  law  seems  for  the  time  being 
to  be  reversed;  and  history  records  for  a  few  generations  a 
marvellous  increase  of  augmented  nervous  organizations, 
offspring  of  the  least  prolific  women.  It  is  clear  that  the 
apparently  miraculous  increase  of  the  least  prolific  is  in  fact 

1  The  still  lower  nervous  organizations  of  the  insect  world  are  even 
more  prolific.  It  has  been  computed  that  one  pair  of  flies  from  May  ist 
to  September  30th  may  breed  by  successive  generation  as  many  as 
4,000,000,000,000,000,000  descendants. 


PRIVATE  PROPERTY 


261 


due  to  mathematical  law;  and  that  in  rising  civilizations 
there  will  be  found  factors  that  offset  the  numerical  advan¬ 
tage  enjoyed  by  prolific  women  by  equal  or  superior  ad¬ 
vantages  enjoyed  by  the  offspring  of  cold  women. 

134.  It  is  evident  that  factors  capable  of  offsetting  the 
numerical  advantages  of  fecundity  must  be  as  constant, 
perennial,  and  powerful  as  fecundity  itself.  The  observed 
results  cover  large  groups  in  different  parts  of  the  world 
over  long  periods  of  time.  In  each  of  these  groups,  and 
throughout  all  these  periods,  fecundity  was  sleepless  and 
effective.  If  the  opposing  factors  paused  for  any  appreciable 
duration,  or  were,  at  any  time,  less  effective,  a  numerical 
advantage  at  once  passed  to  fecundity.  What  historical 
facts  actually  show,  in  rising  civilizations,  is  a  continuous 
decline  of  sexual  prowess  and  rise  of  spiritual  stature ;  war¬ 
ranting  the  inference  that  the  factors  promoting  the  survival 
of  the  latter  were  at  all  times  stronger  than  those  favoring 
the  former. 

The  pages  of  history  enable  the  impartial  investigator  to 
ascertain  and  declare  these  factors :  They  are  private  prop¬ 
erty,  and  alcoholic  temptation.  Neither  of  these,  nor  both 
together,  raise  civilization,  or  prevent  ts  decline.  They 
cease  to  perform  their  beneficent  selection  in  every  group 
which  ceases  to  enforce  maternity  upon  its  cold  women — 
that  is,  in  declining  civilizations.  But,  in  rising  civilizations, 
the  manner  of  their  operation  is  plainly  seen.  Without  them 
the  competition  between  cold  and  ardent  women  would  be 
surely  lost  by  the  least  prolific.  With  the  aid  of  private  pro¬ 
perty  and  alcoholic  temptation,  it  may  be  continued  until 
they  resign  the  contest.  These  factors  fulfill  the  require¬ 
ments  demanded  by  mathematical  law,  viz. ,  that  they  must 
be  limited  to  the  land,  to  human  kind,  and  to  civilization; 
and  they  must  be  as  constant,  perennial,  and  powerful  as 
fecundity.  No  other  factor  equally  fulfilling  these  require¬ 
ments  can  be  found  except,  perhaps,  war.  But  war  is  carried 
on  between  opposing  groups ;  therefore,  while  it  is  a  powerful 
factor  in  determining  which  of  these  groups  shall  survive,  it 


262  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


fails  to  act  with  the  same  continuous  and  beneficent  selec¬ 
tion  in  determining,  within  a  group,  which  of  its  own  members 
shall  survive. 1 

135.  That  the  institution  of  private  property  has  been 
an  invariable  accompaniment  of  the  rise  of  civilization,  is  a 
well  attested  fact.  The  extent  to  which  social  groups  have, 
in  the  past,  been  supported  by  community  property,  is 
almost  unknown.  The  degree  of  civilization  necessary  to 
hand  down  to  posterity  written  history  is  not  attained  by 
such  groups.2  The  earliest  records  of  mankind’s  first  steps 
toward  civilization  indicate  the  possession  of  property  by- 
patriarchs  or  clans,  and  the  distribution  of  its  use  or  produce 
according  to  social  distinction  rather  than  private  ownership. 
The  patriarch  himself,  his  immediate  family,  descendants 
and  entourage  receive  what  they  desire  for  their  support. 
The  remainder  is  awarded  to  the  servants  or  slaves  who 
herd  the  cattle,  and  till  the  fields.  The  ruler  of  the  clan  or 
tribe  is  fed,  clothed  and  equipped  at  the  expense  of  such 
sacrifice,  in  time  of  dearth,  as  may  be  required  of  the  lower 
orders.  So  that,  in  both  these  states  of  society,  nature,  if 
its  bounty  keeps  pace  with  the  increase  of  population,  affords 
equal  sustenance  to  all  the  commonalty;  and,  in  time  of 

1  War  is  the  means  whereby  a  smaller  group  of  higher  nervous  organi¬ 
zations  overcome  a  larger  group  of  lower  nervous  organizations.  Voting 
reaches  an  opposite  result.  To  cite  a  specific  instance,  there  was  never  a 
time  in  the  conquest  of  India  when  the  British  did  not  outfight  the 
Indians,  and  there  was  never  a  time  when  the  Indians  could  not  have 
outvoted  the  British.  The  victories  of  Romans  over  Gauls  for  four 
centuries  teach  the  same  lesson.  Except  for  war,  there  would  not  now 
be  a  Frenchman  in  France,  an  Englishman  in  England,  or  a  white  man  in 
America. 

2  “Except  in  the  singular  institutions  of  Sparta,  the  wisest  legislators 
have  disapproved  an  agrarian  law  as  a  false  and  dangerous  innovation." 
(Gibbon,  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire ,  Chap.  XLIV).  It  is 
significant  of  the  comparative  intellectual  development  of  Sparta  and 
Athens  that  knowledge  of  Spartan  institutions  is  derived  entirely  from 
Athenian  writers.  No  Spartan  literature  has  oeen  transmitted  to  pos¬ 
terity,  and  no  Spartan  has  written  the  history  of  Sparta,  much  less  of 
Athens. 


PRIVATE  PROPERTY 


263 


scarcity,  afflicts  them  with  privation  which  their  rulers  do 
not  share.  The  individual  private  ownership  of  separate 
property,  enabling  one  among  the  commonalty  to  acquire, 
save,  and  increase  possessions,  which,  in  time  of  scarcity, 
he  may  withhold  from  his  neighbors  and  enjoy  solely  for 
himself,  does  not,  in  these  social  organizations,  exist. 

The  institution  of  slavery  was  similar  to  patriarchal  or 
clan  organizations  of  society.  Slaves  were  fed,  clothed,  and 
housed  by  their  master,  after  he  had  fed,  clothed  and  housed 
himself.  Neither  effort,  forbearance,  nor  virtue  on  the  part 
of  the  individual  slave  enabled  him  to  acquire  or  accumulate 
property,  which  in  time  of  dearth  might  support  him,  while 
his  fellow  slaves  starved.  The  master’s  means  or  bounty 
afforded  to  all  his  dependents  an  equal  sustenance,  or  en¬ 
forced  upon  them  an  equal  abstinence.  No  inequality  of 
talent,  enterprise,  skill  or  industry  could  alter  this  distribu¬ 
tion  or  affect  the  slave’s  possessions,  and  no  inequality  of 
inheritance  could  be  transmitted  to  his  children. 

Thus,  a  most  striking  fact  of  early  human  history  is  the 
entire  equality  to  which  the  greatest  numbers  of  mankind 
were  raised  or  reduced.  Whatever  spiritual  growth  may  be 
created,  fostered,  increased  and  continued  by  equality  of 
goods,  may  be  supposed  long  ago  to  have  been  attained  by 
the  vast  multitudes,  who,  for  thousands  of  years,  were  bene¬ 
fited  or  afflicted  by  such  equality.  It  is  significant  that  the 
spiritual  stature  of  mankind  during  all  this  period  continu¬ 
ously  remained  low.  A  superhuman  intelligence,  viewing 
the  results  of  social  and  economic  equality  as  they  ap¬ 
peared,  say,  three  thousand  years  ago,  would  doubtless  have 
pronounced  judgment,  on  the  evidence  then  before  him,  that 
for  the  spiritual  improvement  of  the  human  race,  the 
experiment  of  an  equal  distribution  of  a  common  property 
had  proved  a  failure.  And  that,  while  unequal  distribution 
might  not  prove  a  success,  it  ought  to  be  tried. 

136.  The  institution  of  private  ownership  of  property 
was  well  adapted  for  the  trial  of  the  new  experiment  of  un- 


264  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


equal  distribution.  Although  slavery  would  still  remain, 
freemen  would  be  created;  and,  as  the  numbers  of  freemen 
increased,  each  entitled  to  acquire,  own,  and  hold  property 
against  all  the  world,  including  his  own  government  or  ruler; 
and  to  barter,  sell,  buy,  trade,  transmit,  and  inherit  property 
with  lawful  recognition  of  his  rights ;  so  likewise  would  the 
number  of  members  of  a  new  group  or  commonalty  increase 
— a  group  in  which  possessions  would  be  won  or  lost,  in¬ 
creased  or  diminished,  by  causes  and  principles  unrelated  to 
its  headship,  ruler  or  government ;  and  in  which  the  distribu¬ 
tion  and  accumulation  of  property  would  be  governed  by 
the  individual’s  circumstances  and  mentality,  rather  than 
by  his  needs. 

The  experiment  of  private  property  has  now  been  exten¬ 
sively  tried — always,  until  recent  centuries,  impaired  by  the 
institutions  of  slavery,  of  feudalism,  of  church  and  of  govern¬ 
ment.  Allowing,  however,  for  these  defects,  it  is  still  clear 
that  much  evidence  is  obtainable,  and  that  a  reasonable 
judgment  may  be  fairly  formed,  with  respect  to  the  influence 
which  private  property  exerts  on  the  spiritual  stature  of 
man  and  hence  on  civilization.  History  affords  material, 
not  only  for  a  comparative  view  of  the  respective  institu¬ 
tions  of  private  and  community  property,  but  also  for  a 
rational  judgment  of  the  absolute  effect  of  private  property 
upon  mankind. 

The  importance  of  property  is  sufficiently  attested  by  the 
increasing  wealth  and  accumulation  which  is  observed  in¬ 
variably  attendant  upon  rising  civilization.  Prolific  women 
of  low  nervous  organization  bear  children  as  easily  and 
numerously  in  poverty  as  in  wealth.  Cold  women  of  high 
nervous  organization  are  so  nearly  incapacitated  by  preg¬ 
nancy  and  child-birth  that,  unless  they  are  spared  all  other 
labors,  they  cannot  bear  children  at  all ; — continued  poverty, 
generation  after  generation,  extinguishes  their  type.  Hence 
a  society  which  is  established  on  religious,  social,  or  domestic 
customs  which  impress  cold  women  for  motherhood,  must 
and  does  provide,  for  compulsory  mothers,  means  that  will 


PRIVATE  PROPERTY 


265 


lighten  their  labors  other  than  the  labor  of  child-bearing. 
F or  them  propagation  is  so  huge  a  travail  that  they  can  bear 
no  other  heavy  burdens. 

137.  Private  property,  exercises  a  function  of  peculiar 
beneficence  apart  from  “property”  in  its  general  sense. 
Mankind  has  ever  divided  mortals  from  its  conception  of 
immortals.  Mortality  is  ascribed  to  the  race  of  men,  im¬ 
mortality  to  gods.  Between  these  two,  however,  there  is 
yet  another  class  capable  of  holding  property.  This  class 
I  shall  call  “demortal”  to  signify  that  while  it  is  shorter 
lived  than  a  god,  it  is  yet  longer  lived  than  individual  man. 
To  this  class,  belong  the  human  institutions  of  groups — the 
state,  city,  municipality,  church,  or  charitable  foundation. 
Each  of  these  may  and  does  outlive  a  man.  It  has  been  de- 
mortalized,  not  to  enjoy  eternal  life,  but  endowed  with 
something  more  than  the  life  of  man.  Property  held  by 
such  an  institution  or  group  is  public  property ;  it  is  in  the 
possession  of  a  demortal ;  and  as  generations  of  men  are  born 
and  die,  it  does  not  pass  from  one  to  another,  but  remains  a 
demortal  possession. 

Private  property  is  possessed  by  mortals.  Daily,  peren¬ 
nially,  in  every  year,  decade,  and  generation,  it  changes  its 
ownership  because  of  death.  Like  money,  it  is  ambulatory 
in  its  character,  constantly  going  from  one  hand  to  another. 
No  one  has  ever  more  than  a  qualified  possession  and  a 
transitory  use  of  it,  to  be  cut  off  it  may  be  at  any  time,  it 
must  be  at  some  time.  Regardless  of  whether  it  is  bartered 
or  exchanged,  bought  or  sold,  all  the  private  property  of  a 
nation  is,  by  death  alone,  transferred  to  new  ownership  on 
the  average  of  three  times  in  every  century. 

It  is  this  characteristic  of  private  property — the  fact  that 
it  is  always  possessed  by  mortals — that  makes  it  so  powerful 
a  factor  to  offset  that  numerical  advantage  of  prolific  women 
which  otherwise  would,  with  mathematical  certainty,  secure 
for  them  a  permanent  numerical  superiority.  In  every  rising 
civilization,  property  has  been  a  potent  factor  in  the  ability 
to  bear  and  rear  offspring  to  maturity.  At  the  command  of 


266  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


death,  private  property  is  being  continually  discarded  by 
its  mortal  possessors  and  awarded  to  new  ownership.  As  its 
change  of  ownership  goes  on  sleeplessly,  unbrokenly,  in¬ 
cessantly,  through  all  time,  its  new  owners  are  invari¬ 
ably  found  in  the  group  whose  women  bear  children  with 
larger  heads,  i.e.  in  the  group  which  impresses  maternity 
upon  cold  women  of  augmented  nervous  organization. 
Without  property,  such  a  group  cannot  successfully  propa¬ 
gate  or  maintain  its  numbers  or  even  exist.  For  property 
it  has  a  keen  and  unerring  instinct.  Private  property  serves 
its  purpose  best.  Always  and  everywhere  this  group  will  be 
found  acquiring,  saving,  and  accumulating  mortal  posses¬ 
sions  ;  and  transmitting  to  its  posterity  more  property  than 
it  received  from  its  progenitors.  It  is  the  acquisitiveness  of 
this  group,  born  of  its  desperate  and  vital  need  to  avoid  ex¬ 
tinction,  and  it  is  this  alone,  which  creates  the  enormous 
accretions  of  wealth  invariably  found  in  rising  civilizations. 
Against  the  desperate  needs  of  this  group  for  its  own  exis¬ 
tence,  the  proletariat,  or  offspring  of  prolific  mothers  wage 
war  in  vain.  Hence,  wherever  property  exercises  a  potent 
influence  on  numbers;  if  it  is  a  mortal  possession,  i.e.  private 
property;  then  it  will  be  found  exercising  this  influence  to¬ 
ward  the  increase  and  multiplication  of  that  group  which 
enforces  maternity  upon  its  cold  women  of  high  nervous 
organization,  and  against  that  group  which  is  born  to  ardent 
and  prolific  women  of  low  nervous  organization.  Hence, 
also,  in  those  conditions  of  fertile  soil  and  mild  climate, 
where  private  possession  of  property  is  least  indispensable 
for  propagation,  civilization  exhibits  less  vitality  than  under 
harsher  conditions  which  make  private  property  necessary 
for  existence. 

138.  Just  as  private  property  is  necessary  to  the  increase 
of  a  group  of  augmented  nervous  organization,  so  intellec¬ 
tual  ascendancy  is  necessary  to  the  growth  and  increase 
of  private  property.  The  manner  in  which  intellectual  as¬ 
cendancy  and  private  property  are  invariably  yoked,  appear, 
disappear,  rise,  and  fall  together,  is  one  of  the  most  interest- 


PRIVATE  PROPERTY 


26  7 


ing  evidences  of  mathematical  truth  which  history  affords. 
Where  women  receive  a  common  support  from  common 
property,  shared  equally  by  all  members  of  the  community, 
the  chief,  perhaps  the  only,  factor  in  determining  the  charac¬ 
ter  of  posterity  is  sexual  prowess.  All  other  things  being 
made  equal,  or  as  nearly  equal  as  possible,  posterity  will  be 
descended  from  those  women  who  can  bear  the  most 
children.  Whenever  the  numbers  of  the  community  are 
reduced  by  a  common  disaster  which  afflicts  all  alike,  its 
numbers  will  be  most  quickly  replenished  by  those  women 
who  are  most  prolific.  Afflictions  which  are  not  common 
and  are  not  shared  alike,  but  which  destroy  greater  numbers 
of  some  classes  of  the  community  than  of  others,  introduce 
a  new  factor  in  the  survival  of  posterity.  There  will  be  some 
who  survive  because  their  numbers  were  less  reduced  than 
the  numbers  of  others ;  so  that  fecundity  alone  ceases  to  be 
the  sole  controlling  factor  in  determining  the  character  of 
posterity. 

In  past  ages,  the  chief  of  those  unequal  afflictions  which 
have  reduced  the  numbers  of  a  community,  has  been  famine. 
So  long  as  property  was  enjoyed  in  common,  by  the  followers 
of  a  patriarch,  the  members  of  a  clan,  the  subjects  of  an 
oriental  despot  or  the  slaves  of  a  master,  scarcity  was  felt 
by  all  alike.  The  institution  of  private  property — the 
acknowledgment  of  the  right  of  its  owner  to  withhold  its 
enjoyment  and  possession  from  all  others — changed  famine 
from  an  equal  and  common  affliction  to  an  unequal  afflic¬ 
tion,  reducing  the  numbers  of  a  part  of  the  community  but 
not  of  all.  Even  if  inequality  of  possessions  were  estab¬ 
lished  solely  by  chance,  or  by  inheritance,  or  by  the  ad¬ 
vantage  of  a  small  family  over  a  large  one,  or  by  other  factors 
not  directly  related  to  the  intellectual  attainments  of  the 
possessor,  it  must  still  have  a  marked  effect  upon  the  charac¬ 
ter  of  posterity,  because  of  necessity  it  forbids  that  character 
to  be  determined  by  sexual  prowess  alone. 

But  it  is  a  “group  fact”  that  the  continued  possession  of 
private  property  is  in  general  an  indication  of  some  intellec- 


268  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


tual  superiority.  This  is  especially  true  where  there  are 
considerable  temptations  to  drunkenness,  gluttony  and 
other  self-destructive  vice.  The  continued  possession  of 
private  property  in  the  midst  of  such  temptations,  is  evi¬ 
dence  that  its  possessors  have  a  measure  of  intellectual 
control  over  their  appetites ;  since,  if  they  yielded  to  tempta¬ 
tions,  they  would  soon  squander  their  property  in  the  pursuit 
of  such  vices.  It  is,  likewise,  some  evidence  of  the  intellec¬ 
tual  power  of  the  possessor  to  resist  the  threats  or  blandish¬ 
ments  of  a  priesthood;  since  priests  will  more  often  get 
property  away  from  the  weakminded  than  from  the  strong- 
minded.  There  have  been  no  civilizations  enjoying  the 
continued  practice  of  monogamous  marriage  and  the  insti¬ 
tution  of  private  property,  in  which  there  have  not  been  at 
the  same  time  temptations  to  indulgence  in  gluttony  and 
vice;  and  few  that  have  not  added  solicitations  to  the  sup¬ 
port  of  temples.  So  that,  in  all  civilizations,  the  continued 
possessors  of  private  property  have  displayed  some  power 
to  resist  temptation,  some  intellectual  mastery  of  their 
emotions,  and  some  quality  other  than  sexual  prowess  to 
affect  the  character  of  posterity. 

139.  In  the  acquisition,  saving,  and  accumulation  of 
private  property  otherwise  than  by  inheritance,  good  for¬ 
tune,  or  thrift,  intellect  enjoys  an  equal  scope.  In  all  civili¬ 
zations,  where  private  property  has  become  an  established 
institution,  it  has  been  transferable  by  barter,  sale,  or  other 
contract  between  living  persons,  as  well  as  from  the  dying. 
In  these  contracts — in  the  adventure  of  trade  and  com¬ 
merce,  in  the  ingenuity  or  skill  of  manufacture,  or  in  the 
industry  and  enterprise  of  artisans — intellect  enjoys  an 
enormous  field,  wherein  it  can  seize  many  advantages,  and 
put  beyond  the  reach  of  want  not  only  its  immediate  posses¬ 
sor  but  his  descendants  for  many  generations.  Here  is  a 
direct  advantage  which  private  property  gives  to  intellect 
over  fecundity.  Community  property  rewards  sexual 
prowess  alone,  and  gradually  fills  the  land  with  the  des¬ 
cendants  of  the  most  prolific  mothers.  Private  property 


PRIVATE  PROPERTY 


269 


rewards  intellect.  It  does  not  rob  sexual  prowess  of  all  its 
advantage,  but  it  tends  to  equalize  the  terms  of  the  contest. 
From  being  the  sole  factor,  fecundity  becomes  but  one 
factor  in  fixing  the  character  of  posterity.  The  ability  of 
intellect  to  seize  wealth,  and  to  withhold  from  the  descend¬ 
ants  of  prolific  women  some  part  of  the  necessaries  of  life, 
arms  the  less  numerous  intellectuals  with  weapons  that 
enable  them  to  hold  their  own.  It  is  noticeable  that  under 
the  institution  of  private  property  the  numbers  of  the  poor 
do  not  for  any  very  long  time  sensibly  diminish.  Prolific 
women  usually  tend  to  multiply  posterity  up  to  the  limit 
of  subsistence.  But  whereas,  in  community  property,  their 
offspring  alone  survive,  under  the  institution  of  private 
property  there  is  a  perceptible  addition  of  intellect.  The 
“middle  classes,  ”  descendants  of  intellectual  ancestors,  and 
ancestors  of  intellectual  descendants,  are  found  where  the 
institution  of  private  property  exists,  and  there  alone. 
Without  enjoying  the  inherited  lands  of  rulers  or  the  in¬ 
herited  fecundity  of  serfs,  they  hold  their  place  by  the 
ability  of  intellect  to  seize  part  of  the  possessions  of  both. 

140.  The  psychological  identity  of  the  institutions  of 
private  property  and  of  monogamous  marriage  is  apparent. 
In  monogamy,  each  woman  who  is  made  a  mother  in  lawful 
marriage  has  a  strong  sense  of  ownership  in  her  husband. 
By  law,  custom,  and  religion,  the  marriage  ceremony  confers 
upon  the  monogamous  wife  an  office  from  which  she  can, 
during  her  life,  exclude  all  others  of  her  sex.  Those  prime 
elements  of  the  sense  of  private  property — the  right  to  with¬ 
hold  something  from  others,  the  right  of  sole  possession, — 
possession  and  enjoyment  by  acknowledged  right  and  not 
by  sufferance  or  favor — are  given  to  women  only  when  they 
are  united  to  men  in  ceremonial  marriage  in  a  monogamous 
country.  In  such  a  marriage,  the  wife  and  mother  has  a 
strong  feeling  of  property  right.  Her  husband,  the  father 
of  her  children,  belongs  to  her.  The  abundance  of  his  inheri¬ 
tance,  the  fruits  of  his  labors,  the  renown  of  his  name,  the 
titles  or  honors  bestowed  upon  him,  belong  of  right  to  her 


270  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


and  to  her  children,  and  can  be  lawfully  shared  by  no  other 
woman.  This  sense  of  property  right  in  the  husband  exists 
only  in  a  wife  united  to  him  by  ceremonial  monogamous 
marriage. 

Polygamous  marriage,  and  unceremonial  unions,  or  con¬ 
cubinage,  do  not  create  for  women  any  exclusive  right,  or 
any  sense  of  property  in  the  father  of  their  children.  The 
polygamous  wife  knows  that  she  belongs  to  her  husband, 
but  can  not  feel  that  her  husband  belongs  solely  to  her.  She 
enjoys  no  exclusive  possession,  no  rights  which  she  can  with¬ 
hold  from  others,  no  title  which  another  woman  can  not 
equally  share  with  equal  right.  Even  though  her  husband 
actually  takes  no  other  wife,  his  lawful  right  to  do  so  clouds 
her  exclusive  title,  and  forbids  her  ever  to  feel  her  possession 
of  him  as  more  than  a  right  of  community  property,  which 
she  may  lawfully  be  compelled  to  share  with  others. 

Finally,  in  both  monogamous  and  polygamous  marriage 
the  dower  brought  by  wife  to  husband,  the  payment  made 
by  the  husband  to  the  bride’s  father,  or  the  property  settle¬ 
ments  of  whatever  kind  involved  in  the  marriage,  tend  to 
give  a  property  value  to  the  ceremonial  union.  Marriage 
transfers  property,  and  gives  to  its  new  possessor  a  good  and 
lawful  title. 

141.  In  concubinage,  or  non-ceremonial  unions,  such  a 
transfer  does  not  take  place.  The  relation  of  the  concubine 
to  the  father  of  her  children  is  primarily  only  sexual.  She 
shares  neither  his  name,  rank,  nor  wealth;  she  brings  no 
dowry,  receives  no  marriage  settlement,  creates  no  property 
rights  or  obligations,  and  is  not  endowed  of  her  paramour’s 
lands  or  goods.  Whatever  provision  custom  may  allow,  or 
law  enforce,  for  the  support  of  herself  or  her  children  is 
usually  exacted  by  government  or  society  for  the  ulterior 
motive  of  preventing  her  or  her  offspring  from  becoming  a 
burden  upon  the  State.  Exclusive  property  rights  beyond 
what  is  necessary  for  her  bare  support  are  not  awarded  to  her. 
Still  more  are  “rights”  absent  from  her  sexual  union.  The 
polygamous  wife  occupies  a  position  which  she  may  be  law- 


PRIVATE  PROPERTY 


271 


fully  required  to  share  equally  with  another.  The  concubine 
may  be  condemned  to  yield  not  only  an  equal,  but  even  a 
greater  share  in  her  consort’s  sexual  possession,  to  another 
woman.  For  he  may  take  another  concubine  in  common 
with  her ;  or  he  may  desert  her  and  take  another  in  her  place ; 
or  lastly,  he  may  abandon  concubinage  altogether  and  take 
a  wife.  So  that,  in  this  respect,  she  is  not  only  consciously 
deprived  of  the  sense  of  “rights,”  but  she  knows  that  her 
position  is  impermanent,  that  she  enjoys  no  “possession ”  at 
all,  and  that  by  marriage  to  another,  her  paramour  may 
bestow  upon  a  wife  and  children  all  that  has  been  denied 
to  her — lawful  rights,  a  permanent  relation,  and  a  true  title 
to  possession. 

142.  Hence,  in  monogamy,  posterity  is  continuously 
descended  from  fathers  and  mothers  each  of  whom  feels, 
claims,  and  exercises  a  sense  of  exclusive  possession  in  the 
other  partner  to  the  marriage.  In  polygamy,  this  is  at  once 
qualified.  All  the  fathers  in  polygamous  marriage  feel, 
claim,  and  exercise  the  right  of  exclusive  possession  in  the 
mothers;  the  mothers  in  polygamous  marriage  enjoy  and 
claim,  not  an  exclusive  right  in  the  fathers,  but  a  common 
right  which  they  may  be  required  to  share  with  other  lawful 
wives.  In  non-ceremonial  unions,  or  concubinage,  mothers 
enjoy  no  rights  at  all,  either  exclusive  or  common.  They  are 
tenants  at  will  only,  and  may  be  divested  of  their  tenancy 
at  any  time  when  marriage  rights  are  created  for  another 
woman. 

These  various  relations  affect,  to  a  commanding  degree, 
the  posterity  of  these  unions,  in  respect  to  their  sense  of 
property  rights.  The  descendant  of  a  long  series  of  mono¬ 
gamous  marriages  can  count  all  his  ancestors  of  both  sexes 
as  claiming  and  enjoying  rights  of  exclusive  possession  in 
their  married  partners.  The  descendant  of  a  long  line  of 
polygamous  marriages  can  count  only  his  male  ancestors 
as  claiming  such  rights.  All  his  genetrices  have  claimed  and 
enjoyed  only  a  community  right,  and  not  an  exclusive  right, 
in  their  husbands.  The  descendant  of  a  long  line  of  non- 


272  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


ceremonial  unions  counts  all  his  genetrices  as  being  only 
tenants  at  will,  enjoying  no  rights  exclusive  or  common, 
holding  their  possessions  on  sufferance  and  liable  to  be  di¬ 
vested  at  any  moment.  From  this  ancestry,  there  is,  there¬ 
fore,  bred  into  the  posterity  of  monogamous  marriage  a 
strong  sense  of  private  property — of  the  right  to  withhold 
something  from  others,  the  right  to  sole  possession, — posses¬ 
sion  and  enjoyment  by  acknowledged  right  and  not  by 
sufferance  or  at  will.  This  sense  of  private  property  and  of 
exclusive  possession  is  observable  in  its  highest  degree  only 
in  monogamous  countries.  It  is  seen  greatly  diminished 
in  polygamous  countries;  and  it  probably  exists  in  hardly 
any  degree  whatever  among  the  descendants  of  promiscuous 
unions.  Moreover,  it  can  be  seen  to  vary  as  marriage  cus¬ 
toms  vary,  to  rise  as  marriage  customs  approach  the  ex¬ 
clusiveness  of  monogamy,  and  to  decline  with  the  growth  of 
polygamy  and  concubinage.  This  variation  occurs  among 
the  same  people  at  different  periods  of  their  history. 

143.  The  conclusions  reached  a  priori  in  the  foregoing 
paragraphs  are  confirmed  by  an  examination  of  the  his¬ 
torical  evidence : 

I.  Polygamous  peoples  generally : 

In  Asia,  it  has  long  been  established  that  private  property 
exists  only  by  the  will  and  sufferance  of  the  ruler.  Ancient 
writers  declared  that  private  property  in  land  did  not  exist; 
that  the  title  to  all  the  lands  of  the  Asiatics  was  vested  in  the 
ruler;  and  that  the  occupant  tilled  the  soil  for  the  benefit  of 
the  ruler.  (Strabo,  Dionysius  Halicarnassus.) 

“The  whole  of  the  territory  belongs  to  the  King.  They 
cultivate  it  on  the  terms  of  receiving  as  wages  a  fourth  part 
of  the  produce.”  (Strabo,  India ,  Book  XV.,  Chap.  I,  40.) 

Modern  writers  have  disputed  this,  and  have  maintained 
that  the  sovereign  owned  not  the  land,  but  only  the  land  tax. 
The  difference  is  a  quibble.  A  conveyance  of  the  rents  and 
profits  of  land  is  a  conveyance  of  the  land  itself,  “for  what 
is  the  land  but  the  profit  thereof  ?  ’  *  Peasants  who  are  bound 


PRIVATE  PROPERTY 


27  3 


to  the  soil,  who  occupy  it,  till  it,  and  gain  their  whole  liveli¬ 
hood  from  it,  are  nevertheless  correctly  described  as  “land¬ 
less  ’  ’  if  they  surrender  to  landlord  or  tax  gatherer  so  great  a 
part  of  the  soil’s  products  that  only  a  bare  livelihood  is  left 
for  themselves. 

Under  the  Mohammedan  rulers  of  India,  before  the  Brit¬ 
ish  occupation,  “In  Bengal  the  land  tax  was  fixed,  at  over 
ninety  per  cent  of  the  rental  and  in  northern  India  at  over 
eighty  per  cent  of  the  rental.”  The  Mohammedan  rulers 
claimed  more  than  they  could  fully  realize.  ( Economic 
History  of  India ,  R.  Dutt,  C.  I.  E.  preface.) 

Moreland  says,  “  Nuniz  states  definitely  that  the  peasants 
paid  nine-tenths  to  the  nobles  who  paid  one-half  of  what 
they  received  to  the  emperor,  ”  and  quotes  the  statement  of 
de  Laet  that  the  Mogul  authorities  took  nearly  three-fourths 
of  the  gross  produce  “leaving  only  one-fourth  for  the 
wretched  peasants,  so  that  they  sometimes  received  nothing 
in  return  for  their  labor  and  expenditure.  ’  ’  He  is  inclined  to 
question  the  accuracy  of  these  proportions  on  the  ground  that 
they  are  impossible,  but  acknowledges  that  they  may  have 
occasionally  approximated  to  the  “nearly  three-fourths” 
of  the  produce  given  by  de  Laet.  ( India  at  the  Death  of 
Akbar ,  Chap.  IV,  pp.  98,  134.) 1  The  Mogul  was  the  heir  of 
all  his  subjects.  “So  far  as  the  wealth  could  be  traced,  it 
reverted,  in  Northern  India  at  least,  to  the  Treasury  when 
its  owner  died.”  (Chap.  VII,  p.  262.) 

It  was  not  unusual  for  oriental  despots  to  make  in  set 
terms  a  claim  not  only  to  the  ownership  of  all  land,  but  to 
the  ownership  of  all  property  whatsoever. 

“Kublai  Khan  prohibited  all  species  of  gambling  and 
other  modes  of  cheating,  to  which  the  people  of  this  country 
are  addicted  more  than  any  other  people  upon  earth;  and  as 
an  argument  for  deterring  them  from  the  practice,  he  says 

1  It  is  interesting  to  observe  in  India  under  Akbar  exactly  the  same 
incidents  of  spy  government  and  absence  of  private  property  recounted 
sixteen  centuries  earlier  by  Strabo.  Low  nervous  organizations  are 
fungible,  and  do  not  change  with  time. 


VOL.  I — 18 


274  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


to  them  (in  his  edict),  ‘I  subdued  you  by  the  power  of  my 
sword,  and  consequently  whatever  you  possess  belongs  of 
right  to  me:  if  you  gamble,  therefore,  you  are  sporting  with 
my  property.’”  ( Travels  of  Marco  Polo ,  Bk.  II,  Chap. 
XXVI.) 

The  Grand  Khan  also  gradually  accumulated  all  the  gold 
current  in  his  dominions  by  the  process  of  issuing  paper 
currency,  which  he  forced  his  subjects  to  accept  as  legal 
tender.  ( Ibid .,  Chap.  XVII.) 

That  is,  the  sovereign,  as  possessor  of  all  property,  fixed, 
at  his  own  will,  the  portion  which  should  be  paid  to  him; 
the  common  people  enjoyed  what  was  left.  The  sovereign’s 
forbearance  might  treat  his  subjects  generously;  or  his 
greed  might  claim,  as  the  Mohammedan  rulers  did,  more 
than  could  actually  be  obtained.  In  either  case,  the  subject 
enjoyed  no  “right  ”  to  withhold  property  from  his  sovereign. 
Property  rights  existed  only  between  subjects;  not  between 
subject  and  ruler. 

In  Egypt,  a  like  situation  was  created  by  the  policy  of 
Joseph.  The  land  of  the  peasants  was  bought,  and  the  title 
thereto  vested  in  Pharaoh  the  king.  The  people  became 
servants  under  Pharaoh;  seed  was  furnished  to  them,  and 
they  tilled  the  land,  on  condition  that  a  fifth  part  of  the  pro¬ 
duce  should  be  paid  to  the  government.  (Genesis  XLVII: 
14-26.)  From  the  death  of  Pharaoh  until  the  British  occu¬ 
pation,  the  condition  of  the  Egyptian  fellaheen  did  not 
greatly  vary.  Whoever  ruled  the  land,  the  principle  was 
established  that  private  property  could  not  be  withheld 
from  the  government. 

In  Europe,  the  civilization  attained  by  the  polygamous 
Celts  was  marked  by  the  same  concentration  of  property 
in  the  hands  of  the  rulers.  Mommsen  quotes  from  Greek 
travellers  the  following  account  of  the  magnificent  state 
maintained  by  Luerius,  King  of  the  Arvemians: 

“  Surrounded  by  his  brilliant  train  of  clansmen,  his  hunts¬ 
men  with  their  pack  of  hounds  in  leash  and  his  band  of 


PRIVATE  PROPERTY 


*7  5 


wandering  minstrels,  he  travelled  in  a  silvermounted  chariot 
through  the  towms  of  his  kingdom,  scattering  the  gold  with 
a  full  hand  among  the  multitude,  and  gladdening  above  all 
the  heart  of  the  minstrel  with  the  glittering  shower.  The 
description  of  the  open  table  which  he  kept  in  an  enclosure 
of  1500  double  paces  square,  and  to  which  every  one  who 
came  in  the  way  was  invited,  vividly  remind  us  of  the 
marriage-table  of  Camacho.  In  fact,  the  numerous  Arvern- 
ian  gold  coins  of  this  period  still  extant  show  that  the  canton 
of  the  Arvernians  had  attained  to  extraordinary  wealth  and 
a  comparatively  high  standard  of  civilization.  ’  ’  (Mommsen, 
History  of  Rome,  Bk.  IV,  Chap.  V.) 

The  place  described  above  is  near  Auvergne,  France;  the 
time  two  centuries  before  Christ.  The  psychical  affinity 
between  the  state  maintained  by  this  Celtic  monarch  in 
western  Europe,  and  the  state  maintained  by  Asiatic  or 
Egyptian  despots,  is  apparent.  In  all  cases,  the  sovereign, 
ruling  a  people  whose  domestic  usages  admit  polygamy  or 
concubinage,  finds  in  time  little  resentment  at  the  denial 
of  property  rights. 

144.  II.  The  Jews: 

In  the  patriarchal  age,  Jacob’s  domestics,  servants,  and 
herdsmen  shared  in  common  the  produce  that  Jacob  and  his 
family  spared  to  them.  Separate  possession  of  private 
property  on  the  part  of  the  commonalty  was  unknown. 
Famine  was  an  affliction  suffered  equally  by  all.  In  Egypt, 
after  the  death  of  Joseph,  the  Hebrews  were  held  in  bondage, 
and  their  tasks  and  rations  allotted  to  them  by  the  govern¬ 
ment.  Marriage,  if  it  remained,  lost  its  economic  signifi¬ 
cance,  and  the  Hebrew  women  bore  children  out  of  matri¬ 
mony  with  the  same  security  for  their  offspring’s  support 
that  would  be  enjoyed  by  children  born  in  wedlock.  The 
thievish  traits  which  are  always  engendered  in  a  posterity 
born  in  bondage  became  noticeable  in  the  Hebrews  at  this 
time;  and  a  naive  account  is  given  of  how  they  “spoiled  the 
Egyptians.”  (Exodus  XII:  35-36.)  During  their  wander¬ 
ings  in  the  wilderness,  they  were  likewise  fed  on  rations. 
Their  spiritual  decline  was  marked  by  idolatry,  and  they 


276  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OP  CIVILIZATION 


made  and  worshipped  a  golden  calf.  Moses,  furious,  sepa¬ 
rated  those  who  could  worship  an  invisible  God  from  the 
idolators,  and  slew  the  latter — three  thousand  men.  By  this 
massacre,  the  strain  of  posterity  was  vastly  improved. 

The  improved  strain,  arrived  in  Canaan,  established,  and 
for  a  considerable  period  maintained,  the  institution  of 
private  property.  The  land  was  divided,  and  allotments 
were  made  to  the  several  tribes  and  to  the  individuals  of  the 
tribes.  In  the  story  of  Ruth  and  Boaz,  private  property  is 
found  at  its  best.  There  were  rich  and  poor.  Unequal 
possessions  made  it  possible  for  the  less  prolific  women  to 
preserve  their  strain  in  posterity  against  the  more  prolific. 
The  Tribe  of  Benjamin  became  monogamous,  and  out  of 
that  tribe  rose  Saul,  “the  goodliest  man  in  all  Israel,” 
born  of  a  rich  family. 

The  institution  of  private  property,  highly  regarded  by 
the  Hebrews  of  the  Book  of  Judges  and  the  Book  of  Ruth, 
gradually  declined  as  polygamy  continuously  affected  the 
strain  of  posterity.  In  Solomon’s  reign,  the  relations  be- 
between  king  and  people  had  become  thoroughly  Asiatic. 
The  land  was  drained  to  provide  a  vast  magnificence  for  the 
government,  the  court,  the  temple  and  the  king.  Nine 
chapters  of  the  Book  of  Kings  are  exhausted  in  describing 
the  glory  and  grandeur  of  his  reign,  his  house,  his  temple, 
his  harem,  his  stables,  his  feasts,  the  daily  provision  for  his 
household,  the  number  of  his  workmen,  and  the  greatness 
of  his  works.  In  a  small  land  of  much  poverty,  Solomon 
slew  22,000  oxen  and  120,000  sheep  for  a  feast  to  all  the 
people. 

“On  the  eighth  day  he  sent  the  people  away;  and  they 
blessed  the  king  and  went  under  their  tents  joyful  and  glad 
of  heart  for  all  the  goodness  that  the  Lord  had  done  for 
David,  his  servant,  and  for  Israel  his  people.”  (I  Kings, 
VIII,  66.) 

The  twelfth  chapter  of  Kings  shows  the  next  reign.  To 
Solomon’s  successor  the  children  of  Israel  say : 


PRIVATE  PROPERTY 


277 


Thy  father  made  our  yoke  grievous ;  now  therefore  make 
thou  the  grievous  service  of  thy  father,  and  his  heavy  yoke 
which  he  put  upon  us,  lighter,  and  we  will  serve  thee.” 
(I  Kings,  XII,  4.) 

Rehoboam  replied : 

“My  little  finger  shall  be  thicker  than  my  father’s  loins. 
And  now  whereas  my  father  did  lade  you  with  a  heavy  yoke, 
I  will  add  to  your  yoke :  my  father  hath  chastised  you  with 
whips,  but  I  will  chastise  you  with  scorpions.”  (Ibid., 

IO-II.) 

In  only  three  reigns — Saul,  David,  Solomon — the  children 
of  Israel  passed  from  the  vigorous  simplicity  delineated  in 
Judges,  Ruth,  and  Samuel,  at  which  times  private  property 
was  highly  regarded  and  every  man  secure  in  his  possessions 
against  the  government,  to  the  true  relation  which  polyg¬ 
amous  people  always  bear  to  their  rulers.  The  laudation 
of  Solomon  is  in  the  usual  style  of  oriental  princes  whose 
wisdom  and  magnificence  are  praised  so  long  as  they  live; 
but  it  belongs  to  polygamy  everywhere  and  not  in  the 
Orient  alone.  The  story  of  Solomon’s  table  and  of  his  feasts 
might  pass  for  the  table  and  feasts  of  Luerius,  King  of  the 
Arvernians,  quoted  above.  In  China,  India,  Mesopotamia, 
Egypt,  Palestine  and  Gaul,  under  varying  climates,  differ¬ 
ent  skies  and  widely  separated  races  of  people,  polygamy 
has  created  the  same  ideal  of  government; — a  government 
that  owns  the  land  it  rules,  from  whom  no  private  property 
can  be  withheld,  and  whose  subjects  are  bidden  to  subsist 
on  what  the  king  can  spare.  All  bounty  comes  from  him. 
Nothing  can  be  withheld  from  him. 

145.  III.  The  Hellenes: 

The  laws  of  Lycurgus  established  in  Sparta  an  equality 
of  property  unknown  to  the  rest  of  Greece. 

“He  redistributed  the  whole  territory  belonging  to  Sparta, 
as  well  as  the  remainder  of  Laconia;  the  former  in  9000 
equal  lots,  one  to  each  Spartan  citizen :  the  latter  in  30,000 
equal  lots,  one  to  each  periotus.  Moreover,  he  banished 


278  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


the  use  of  gold  and  silver  money,  tolerating  nothing  in  the 
shape  of  circulating  medium  but  pieces  of  iron,  heavy  and 
scarcely  portable,  and  he  forbade  to  the  Spartan  citizen 
every  species  of  industrious  or  money-seeking  occupation, 
agriculture  included.”  (Grote,  History  of  Greece ,  Part  II, 
Chap.  VI.) 

* 

He  established  the  syssitia,  or  public  mess. 

“From  boyhood  to  old  age  every  Spartan  citizen  took  his 
sober  meals  at  this  public  mess,  where  all  shared  alike;  nor 
was  distinction  of  any  kind  allowed,  except  on  signal  occa¬ 
sions  of  service  rendered  by  the  individual  to  the  State.” 
{Ibid.) 

This  community  of  property  was  accompanied  by  a 
modified  community  of  women;  licensed  expeditions  for 
thieving;  and  an  extremely  stunted  spiritual  growth,  so 
that  the  Spartans  after  many  generations  were  the  least 
intellectual  of  all  the  Hellenes.  See  the  following  evidence. 

“To  bring  together  the  finest  couples  was  regarded  by  the 
citizens  as  desirable,  and  by  the  law-giver  as  a  duty.  No 
personal  feeling  or  jealousy  on  the  part  of  the  husband  found 
sympathy  from  anyone — and  he  permitted  without  difficulty, 
sometimes  actively  encouraged,  compliances  on  the  part  of 
his  wife  consistent  with  this  generally  acknowledged  object. 
So  far  was  such  toleration  carried  that  there  were  some 
married  women  who  were  recognized  mistresses  of  two 
houses  and  mothers  of  two  distinct  families.”  {Ibid.) 

“In  Sparta,  marital  jealousy  was  a  sentiment  neither 
indulged  nor  recognized — while  in  Athens  it  was  intense  and 
universal.  ’  ’  {Ibid. ) 

“The  nourishment  supplied  to  the  youthful  Spartans  was 
purposely  kept  insufficient,  but  they  were  allowed  to  make 
up  the  deficiency  not  only  by  hunting,  but  even  by  stealing 
whatever  they  could  lay  hands  upon,  provided  they  could 
do  so  without  being  detected  in  the  act ;  in  which  latter  case 
they  were  severely  chastised.”  {Ibid.) 

“And  it  is  to  be  observed  that  the  Spartan  mind  continued 
to  be  cast  on  the  old-fashioned  scale  and  unsusceptible  of 
modernizing  influences,  longer  than  that  of  most  other 
people  of  Greece.”  {Ibid.) 


PRIVATE  PROPERTY 


279 


Thus,  it  appears  that,  in  Sparta,  there  was  established  an 
equal  division  of  property,  which  was  maintained  for  many 
generations  by  the  strictest  laws  designed  to  prevent  the 
smarter  or  more  ambitious  citizens  from  acquiring  greater 
possessions  than  their  neighbors.  All  the  men  were  fed  on 
rations  by  the  State,  and  shared  equally.  The  impairment 
of  the  right  of  possession  of  private  property  was  accom¬ 
panied  by  an  equal  impairment  of  the  right  of  exclusive 
possession  of  husbands  in  their  wives.  Stealing  was  not, 
although  detection  was,  considered  a  punishable  crime. 
The  Spartans  never  attained  an  intellectual  development 
equal  to  the  rest  of  Greece.  It  was  in  Attica,  the  home  of 
jealous  husbands  and  of  established  institutions  of  private 
property  and  of  rich  and  poor,  and  which  contained  the 
greatest  number  of  freemen  who  could  own,  acquire,  keep, 
lose,  withhold  and  transmit  property,  that  the  Greek  in¬ 
tellect  reached  its  height. 

146.  IV.  Rome. 

At  the  founding  of  Rome,  monogamy  and  private  prop¬ 
erty  went  hand  in  hand.  Both  institutions  were  there 
preserved  in  greater  perfection  and  for  a  longer  time  than 
in  any  other  ancient  state.  In  the  century  before  Christ, 
the  ancient  severity  of  Roman  marriage  had  broken  down 
among  the  aristocracy  of  the  city.  It  was  succeeded  by 
freedom  of  divorce  and  a  freedom  of  association  between 
the  sexes  which  Ferrero  rightly  designates  as  “free  love.” 
In  this  class  of  society,  the  sense  of  private  property  rights 
was  demolished,  as  monogamous  marriage  had  been  de¬ 
molished.  First  Sulla,  and  then  Octavianus,  seized  the 
property  of  this  class,  right  and  left.  For  a  period,  a  truly 
Asiatic  idea  of  the  rights  of  government  over  the  property 
of  the  governed  was  established  in  Rome  itself.  The  period 
passed.  The  small  circle  of  aristocrats  who  practised 
and  submitted  to  Asiatic  tyranny,  died  for  want  of  heirs. 
Monogamous  marriage  still  prevailed  in  the  provinces;  and 
for  three  centuries  the  growth  of  Christianity  continuously 
added  to  the  numbers  of  posterity  whose  ancestors  held 


280  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


religiously  to  monogamous  marriage  as  exclusive  of  all  other 
relations  between  man  and  woman.  The  growth  of  con¬ 
cubinage  among  the  newer  aristocracy,  and  among  the 
common  people  of  the  old  religion,  was  slow.  It  was  not  till 
about  250  a.d.  that  the  rights  of  private  property  declined 
throughout  the  Empire.  At  that  time,  according  to  Gibbon : 

“Every  city  of  the  empire  was  possessed  of  an  independ¬ 
ent  revenue,  destined  to  purchase  corn  for  the  multitude, 
and  to  supply  the  expenses  of  the  games  and  entertainments. 
By  a  single  act  of  authority,  the  whole  mass  of  wealth  was 
at  once  confiscated  for  the  use  of  the  Imperial  treasury. 
The  temples  were  stripped  of  their  most  valuable  offerings 
of  gold  and  silver,  and  the  statues  of  gods,  heroes,  and  em¬ 
perors,  were  melted  down  and  coined  into  money.  These 
impious  orders  could  not  be  executed  without  tumults  and 
massacres,  as  in  many  places  the  people  chose  to  die  in  the 
defense  of  their  altars,  than  to  behold  in  the  midst  of  peace 
their  cities  exposed  to  the  rapine  and  cruelty  of  war.” 
( Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire ,  Chap.  VII — a.d. 

238-) 

At  this  time  concubinage  had  become  common. 

“From  the  age  of  Augustus  to  the  tenth  century  the  use 
of  this  secondary  marriage  prevailed  both  in  the  west  and 
east ;  and  the  humble  virtues  of  a  concubine  were  often  pre¬ 
ferred  to  the  pomp  and  insolence  of  a  noble  matron.  In  this 
connection,  the  two  Antonines,  the  best  of  princes  and  of 
men,  enjoyed  the  comforts  of  domestic  love;  the  example 
was  imitated  by  many  citizens  impatient  of  celibacy,  but 
regardful  of  their  families.”  ( Ibid .,  Chap.  XLIV.) 

In  the  page  immediately  following  the  description  of 
Maximin’s  seizure  of  the  wealth  of  the  Roman  cities,  Gibbon 
cites  the  specific  case  of  Gordianus,  who  was  possessed  of 
twenty-two  acknowledged  concubines,  by  each  of  whom  he 
left  three  or  four  children. 

A  generation  after  Maximin,  Diocletian  (284-305)  ini¬ 
tiated  imperial  rule  on  Asiatic  principles.  This  was  per¬ 
fected  by  Constantine  the  Great,  and  at  the  end  of  his  reign 


PRIVATE  PROPERTY 


281 


(a.d.  337)  the  Empire  was  firmly  established  on  an  Asiatic 
basis  of  centralized  imperial  rule,  Asiatic  criminal  procedure, 
and  Asiatic  taxation. 

The  sums  required  for  the  annual  service  of  the  imperial 
government  were  immense ;  and  in  order  to  levy  as  great  an 
amount  of  revenue  from  his  subjects  as  possible,  Constan¬ 
tine  revised  the  census  of  all  the  taxes,  and  carried  their 
amount  as  high  as  he  possibly  could.  Every  measure  was 
adopted  to  transfer  the  whole  circulating  medium  of  the 
empire  annually  into  the  coffers  of  the  State.  No  economy 
or  industry  could  enable  his  subjects  to  accumulate  wealth; 
while  any  accident,  a  fire,  an  inundation,  an  earthquake,  or 
a  hostile  incursion  of  the  barbarians,  might  leave  a  whole 
province  incapable  of  paying  its  taxes,  and  plunge  it  in 
hopeless  debt  and  ruin.”  (Finlay,  Greece  Under  the  Romans , 
Chap  II.) 

“In  general  the  outward  forms  of  taxation  were  very 
little  altered  by  Constantine,  but  he  rendered  the  whole 
fiscal  system  more  regular  and  more  stringent;  and  during 
no  period  was  the  maxim  of  the  Roman  government,  that 
the  cultivators  of  the  soil  were  nothing  but  the  instruments 
for  feeding  and  clothing  the  imperial  court  and  the  army, 
more  steadily  kept  in  view.”  {ibid.) 

“Time  was  reckoned  from  the  first  year,  or  Indictio,  of 
the  new  assessment,  and  when  the  cycle  of  fifteen  years 
was  completed,  a  new  revision  took  place,  and  a  new  cycle 
was  commenced;  the  people  thus  taking  no  heed  of  the  lapse 
of  time  except  by  noting  the  years  of  similar  taxation.” 
(Ibid.) 

“As  the  wealth  and  population  of  the  Roman  empire 
declined,  the  operation  of  the  municipal  system .  became 
more  oppressive.  The  chief  attention  of  the  imperial 
governors  in  the  provinces  was  directed  to  preventing  any 
diminution  in  the  revenue,  and  the  Roman  legislation 
attempted  to  enforce  the  payment  of  the  ancient  amount 
of  land-tax  and  capitation  from  a  declining  and  impover¬ 
ished  population.  Laws  were  enacted  to  fix  every  class  of 
society  in  its  actual  condition  with  regard  to  the  revenue. 
The  son  of  a  member  of  the  curia  was  bound  to  take  his 
father’s  place;  the  son  of  a  landed  proprietor  could  neither 
become  a  tradesman  nor  a  soldier,  unless  he  had  a  brother 
who  could  replace  his  father  as  a  payer  of  the  land-tax.  The 
son  of  an  artisan  was  bound  to  follow  his  father’s  profession, 


282  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


that  the  amount  of  the  capitation  might  not  be  diminished. 
Every  corporation  or  guild  had  the  power  of  compelling  the 
children  of  its  members  to  complete  its  numbers.  Fiscal 
conservatism  became  the  spirit  of  Roman  legislation.  To 
prevent  the  land  beyond  the  limits  of  a  municipality  from 
falling  out  of  cultivation,  by  the  free  inhabitants  of  the  rural 
districts  quitting  their  lands  in  order  to  better  their  condi¬ 
tion  in  the  towns,  the  laws  gradually  attached  them  to  the 
soil,  and  converted  them  into  serfs.”  {Ibid.) 

1 1  Municipalities  henceforward  began  to  be  regarded  as  a 
burden  rather  than  privilege.  Their  magistrates  formed  an 
aristocratic  class  in  accordance  with  the  whole  fabric  of  the 
Roman  constitution.  These  magistrates  had  willingly 
borne  all  the  burdens  imposed  on  them  by  the  State  as  long 
as  they  could  throw  the  heaviest  portion  of  the  load  on  the 
people  over  whom  they  presided.  But  the  people  at  last 
became  too  poor  to  lighten  the  burden  of  the  rich,  and  the 
government  found  it  necessary  to  force  every  wealthy 
citizen  to  enter  the  curia,  and  make  good  any  deficiency  in 
the  taxes  of  the  district  from  his  own  private  revenues.  As 
the  Roman  empire  declined,  the  members  of  one  curia  after 
another  sank  to  the  same  level  of  general  poverty.  {Ibid.) 

“.  .  .  but  at  the  same  time,  all  those  privileges  which 
had  once  alleviated  the  pressure  of  the  revenue  law,  in 
particular  districts,  were  now  abolished.  The  destruction 
of  the  great  oligarchs,  who  had  rendered  themselves  proprie¬ 
tors  of  whole  provinces  in  the  earlier  days  of  the  Roman 
domination,  was  now  effected.”  {Ibid.) 

“The  necessity  of  preventing  the  possibility  of  a  falling 
off  in  the  revenue,  was,  in  the  eyes  of  the  imperial  court,  of 
as  much  consequence  as  the  maintenance  of  the  efficiency 
of  the  army.  Proprietors  of  land,  and  citizens  of  wealth, 
were  not  allowed  to  enroll  themselves  as  soldiers,  lest  they 
should  escape  from  paying  their  taxes ;  and  only  those  ple¬ 
beians  and  peasants  who  were  not  liable  to  the  land-tax  were 
taken  as  recruits.”  {Ibid.) 

The  evidence  is,  therefore,  that,  in  Rome,  the  rights  of 
private  property  were  first  impaired  in  that  section  of 
Roman  society  which  had  abandoned  the  ancient  severity 
of  Roman  monogamous  marriage  for  free  divorce  and  “free 
love”;  that  after  concubinage  had  been  allowed  and  widely 
practiced  for  about  two  centuries,  the  Imperial  Government 


PRIVATE  PROPERTY 


283 


effected  at  its  will  a  vast  seizure  of  the  private  property  of 
municipalities  and  temples ;  and  that,  after  three  centuries, 
the  relation  of  the  Roman  government  to  its  subjects’  rights 
of  private  property  had  become  thoroughly  Asiatic.  All 
the  profits,  not  only  of  land,  but  of  trade  and  industry,  were 
annually  swept  by  the  tax  gatherer  into  the  Imperial  coffers. 
Thereafter,  no  private  citizen  was  able  to  increase  his  wealth 
and  to  retain  the  increase  from  the  government.  There  was 
no  accumulation  of  capital  for  new  investment;  and  when¬ 
ever  the  investments  of  the  past  were  destroyed  by  time  or 
calamity,  they  could  not  be  renewed.  After  Constantine, 
Rome  was  an  empire  without  capitalism.  There  is  observed 
the  same  slow  strangulation  of  society,  the  stifling  of  in¬ 
tellect,  the  impairment  of  mental  and  physical  vigor,  the 
complete  ascendency  of  despotism  and  the  change  in  the 
character  of  the  population  to  a  submissive  people  wholly 
given  over  to  the  pleasures  of  propagation,  that  is  marked 
in  the  gibbous  civilizations  of  Asia. 

147.  V.  Christians. 

The  first  Christians,  descended  from  polygamists,  had  an 
impaired  sense  of  private  property.  They  established  a 
community,  “and  had  all  things  common;  and  sold  their 
possessions  and  goods  and  parted  them  to  all  men  as  every 
man  had  need.’’  (Acts  II,  44-45.)  (See  also  Acts  IV,  34- 
35.)  The  religious  sanctity  which  the  early  and  persecuted 
Christians  attached  to  monogamous  marriage  soon  changed 
the  views  of  their  posterity  as  to  private  property  and  gave 
them  a  great  advantage  over  their  pagan  contemporaries. 
During  the  first  three  centuries  after  Christ,  free  association 
of  the  sexes  was  common  to  all  classes  of  society  except 
Christians.  “Free  love,’’  divorce  by  mutual  consent,  and 
the  practice  of  concubinage  reared  among  the  pagans  a 
posterity  like  the  posterity  of  polygamists.  A  sense  of 
ownership  or  exclusive  possession  by  acknowledged  right 
on  the  part  of  each  parent  toward  the  other,  was  unknown. 
In  this  age,  the  religion  of  the  Christians  supplied  what  the 
laws  of  the  state  had  abandoned.  And  the  Christian  wife. 


284  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


as  well  as  the  Christian  husband,  was  rewarded  in  Christian 
marriage  by  a  sense  of  property  right. 

The  result  appeared  in  their  growing  wealth.  At  the 
beginning  of  these  three  centuries,  the  Christians  were  the 
poorest  class  of  the  community ;  so  obscure  as  to  be  beneath 
the  notice  of  the  haughty  Romans.  Strict  monogamous 
marriage,  contrasted  with  the  laxity  around  them,  gradually 
diverted  into  their  hands  a  vast  property.  At  the  end  of  the 
period,  they  were  the  most  wealthy  and  the  most  respectable 
of  the  imperial  subjects. 

After  the  end  of  the  fourth  century,  when  sterility  instead 
of  marriage  was  accepted  as  a  divine  institution,  private 
property  declined  among  the  Christians  as  formerly  it  had 
declined  in  the  pagan  empire.  The  sanctity  of  marriage  and 
the  sanctity  of  property  rights  disappeared  together.  For 
ten  centuries,  Christian  history  presents  an  unvarying 
picture  of  loose  marriage  customs,  concubinage,  and  desti¬ 
tution.  The  continent  of  Europe,  an  area  of  vast  wealth 
under  pagan  Rome,  destined  to  see  even  greater  wealth 
after  the  sixteenth  century,  was,  for  a  thousand  years,  the 
abode  of  Christians  who  neither  produced  nor  acquired 
wealth.  The  soil  was  occupied,  tilled,  and  its  annual  harvest 
was  consumed;  but  no  Christian  acquired,  or  saved,  or 
accumulated,  or  lent  wealth.  For  the  latter  part  of  this 
period,  an  exception  may  be  made  of  the  Republics  of  Venice 
and  Genoa  which  were  more  avaricious  than  devout.  With 
these  tiny  exceptions  all  Europe’s  wealth  during  this  period 
was  produced,  possessed,  invested,  and  loaned  by  Moslems 
and  Jews.  The  sense  of  private  property  was  still  dormant 
in  the  Christian  mind.  Whole  nations  swept  across  the  land, 
destroyed  or  enslaved  its  old  inhabitants,  possessed  the  soil, 
became  Christianized,  devout — and  thereupon  gave  half 
their  land  into  the  demortal  possession  of  the  Church.  For 
many  centuries,  Christian  history  records  a  seesaw  between 
the  secular  and  sacerdotal  power.  Devout  princes  gave  their 
lands  to  the  Church;  in  a  generation  or  so,  a  successor, 
pricked  by  poverty,  plundered  the  Church ;  another  genera- 


PRIVATE  PROPERTY 


285 


tion,  and  another  successor,  pricked  by  remorse,  gave  back 
to  the  Church.  Not  until  the  Reformation  were  religious 
houses  plundered  permanently,  and  the  plunder  kept  in 
mortal  hands. 

When  strict  monogamous  marriage  was  again  regarded  as 
a  holy  institution,  the  rise  of  wealth  began.  It  would  be 
expected  that,  in  those  lands  where  the  doctrine  of  religious 
sterility  was  repudiated  altogether,  and  ‘‘holy”  matrimony 
had  no  rival  as  a  divine  institution,  the  greatest  increase  of 
wealth  would  be  found;  and  that,  in  these  lands,  wealth 
would  be  found  in  the  hands  of  the  class  where  indissoluble 
monogamous  marriage  had  long  been  strictly  observed. 
The  evidence  of  history  fulfills  both  expectations.  At  the 
beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century,  in  nearly  every 
monarchy  of  Europe,  such  wealth  as  existed  was  confined 
to  the  land-owning  and  princely  caste — those  who  collected 
rents,  or  taxes,  or  both.  It  was  in  this  century,  at  the  meet¬ 
ing  of  Francis  I  and  Henry  VIII,  with  the  long  and  gorgeous 
trains  of  their  great  land-owners  and  great  prelates,  that 
there  was  presented  the  famous  display  of  wealth  on  the 
Field  of  the  Cloth  of  Gold.  All  the  population  that  paid 
rents  and  taxes  was  poor.  Kings,  nobles,  and  religious 
houses,  when  they  borrowed,  were  still  obliged  to  pawn 
jewels  or  plate  and  to  borrow  from  Jews.  This  century  saw 
the  final  act  for  the  suppression  of  concubinage;  the  final 
establishment  of  “holy”  matrimony  as  sacred  and  indis¬ 
soluble;  and  (in  Protestant  countries)  the  plunder  of  re¬ 
ligious  houses,  and  the  transfer  of  their  lands  from  demortal 
to  mortal  hands. 

148.  In  all  three  of  these  particulars,  England  had  some 
advantage  over  the  Continent.  As  Roman  law  was  never 
part  of  the  common  law  of  England,  concubinage  never 
received  the  legal  standing  awarded  to  it  on  the  Continent; 
the  Reformation  was  accomplished,  the  religious  houses 
plundered,  and  “  holy  ”  matrimony  established  as  sacred  and 
indissoluble  by  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century.  On  the 
Continent,  religious  wars  continued  for  another  century. 


286  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


Spain  lacked  all  three  of  these  advantages.  In  that 
country  Roman  law  had  recognized  concubinage; — there 
was  no  Reformation ;  the  religious  sterilization  of  cold  and 
pious  women  still  continued;  and  wives  could  sue  in  the 
Spanish  courts  for  divorce.1  The  religious  houses  were 
left  undisturbed  in  the  possession  of  their  property,  while 
the  crown  claimed  a  large  part  of  all  the  revenues  derived 
from  the  new  world. 

The  contrast  between  England  and  Spain,  as  they  were 
in  the  sixteenth  century  and  in  the  nineteenth  century,  is 
instructive. 

“The  empire  of  Philip  the  Second  was  undoubtedly  one 
of  the  most  powerful  and  splendid  that  ever  existed  in  the 
world.  In  Europe,  he  ruled  Spain,  Portugal,  the  Nether¬ 
lands  on  both  sides  of  the  Rhine,  Franche  Comte,  Roussillon, 
the  Milanese,  and  the  Two  Sicilies.  Tuscany,  Parma,  and 
the  other  small  states  of  Italy,  were  as  completely  dependent 
on  him  as  the  Nizam  and  the  Rajah  of  Berar  now  are  on  the 
East  India  Company.  In  Asia,  the  King  of  Spain  was 
master  of  the  Philippines  and  of  all  those  rich  settlements 
which  the  Portuguese  had  made  on  the  coast  of  Malabar 
and  Coromandel,  in  the  Peninsula  of  Malacca,  and  in  the 
Spice-islands  of  the  Eastern  Archipelago.  In  America,  his 
dominions  extended  on  each  side  of  the  equator  into  the 
temperate  zone.  There  is  reason  to  believe  that  his  annual 
revenue  amounted,  in  the  season  of  his  greatest  power,  to 
a  sum  near  ten  times  as  large  as  that  which  England  yielded 
to  Elizabeth.  He  had  a  standing  army  of  fifty  thousand 
excellent  troops,  at  a  time  when  England  had  not  a  single 
battalion  in  constant  pay.  His  ordinary  naval  force  con¬ 
sisted  of  a  hundred  and  forty  galleys.  He  held,  what  no 
other  prince  in  modern  times  has  held,  the  dominion  both 
of  the  land  and  of  the  sea.  During  the  greater  part  of  his 
reign,  he  was  supreme  on  both  elements.  His  soldiers 
marched  up  to  the  capital  of  France;  his  ships  menaced  the 
shores  of  England. 

“It  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that,  during  several  years, 
his  power  over  Europe  was  greater  than  even  that  of 

1  See  Cervantes’  brief  comedy  The  Divorce  Court.  So  far  as  I  know 
this  records  the  earliest  Christian  divorce  cases  tried  in  the  secular  courts. 


PRIVATE  PROPERTY  287 

Napoleon.”  (Macaulay’s  Essays,  War  of  the  Succession  in 
Spain.) 

In  Spain,  a  great  part  of  this  vast  colonial  wealth  was 
public  property — claimed  as  such  by  the  crown.  A  great 
part  of  the  nation’s  domestic  wealth  was  pi  the  hands  of  the 
crown  or  the  Church.  Its  transfer  from  demortal  to  mortal 
hands  never  took  place.  In  England,  the  conquests  in 
America  and  Asia  were  made  by  private  enterprise  and 
swelled  the  volume  of  private  wealth.  The  East  India 
Co.,  and  the  Hudson  Bay  Co.,  belonged  not  to  the  crown, 
but  to  its  subjects.  After  Henry  VIII  had  plundered  the 
religious  houses  and  had  divided  their  lands  among  his 
favorites,  the  domestic  wealth  was  mostly  in  private  hands ; 
also,  all  the  accretions  of  wealth  from  commerce  and  trade 
remained  in  the  hands  of  mortals.  For  a  period  of  three 
centuries  there  was  in  these  two  countries  a  continuous 
trial  of  the  difference  between  public  and  private  ownership 
of  vast  possessions.  At  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  their  positions  were  exactly  reversed.  Riches  and 
power  had  increased  in  England  as  much  as  they  had  dim¬ 
inished  in  Spain. 1 

149.  The  comparison  between  England  and  Spain  points 
to  another  law  which  governs  the  operation  of  public  and 
private  property  with  mathematical  certainty.  Public 
property,  possessed  by  demortals,  is  unprolific.  It  may  be 
hoarded;  and  the  hoard  may  increase  as  contributions  are 
added  to  it  in  the  passage  of  time.  In  this  way,  the  posses¬ 
sions  of  an  established  Church,  continuously  augmented  by 
the  oblations  of  the  faithful,  and  never  spent  or  dissipated, 

1  Casanova  tound  the  Spanish  peasantry  the  poorest  in  Europe,  two 
ounces  of  bread  and  a  handful  of  chestnuts  or  acorns  sufficing  a  Spaniard 
for  a  day.  At  the  same  time  the  Archbishop  of  Toledo  had  three  hundred 
thousand  douros  a  year, and  his  clergy  four  hundred  thousand,  amounting 
to  two  million  francs  in  French  money.  The  vast  property  and  huge 
income  of  the  Spanish  Church  never  passed,  like  private  property  from 
mortal  to  mortal,  but  remained  always  in  the  hands  of  a  demortal  insti¬ 
tution.  Instead  of  enriching  it  impoverished  the  country. 


288  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


are  gradually  swelled  to  vast  amounts.  The  hoarded  wealth 
of  princes  and  dynasties  is  sometimes  great.  But  the 
accumulations  of  demortals  are  never  fruitful.  They  may 
be  increased  by  additions,  but  they  do  not  multiply.  Least 
of  all  do  they  enrich  posterity ;  for  they  are  not  handed  down 
from  ancestor  to  descendants-— from  one  possessor  to  several 
• — but  remain  always  in  the  continuous  grasp  of  a  demortal 
hand.  Moral  or  spiritual  changes  in  the  possessor  do  not 
affect  demortal  possessions.  The  riches  bestowed  by  the 
pious  upon  religious  houses  are  still  retained  after  the  giver 
is  dead,  and  piety  has  departed.  State  property  remains 
state  property  despite  changes  of  administration,  and  its 
revenues,  sufficient  for  a  prudent  and  economical  adminis¬ 
tration,  may  be  squandered  by  an  extravagant  successor. 
No  matter  how  great  its  possessions,  the  expenditures  of  a 
state  will,  in  no  long  period  of  time,  equal  or  exceed  its 
revenues. 

Private  property,  not  possessed  by  the  community  as  a 
whole,  but  owned  in  severalty  by  its  separate  individuals,  is 
characteristically  different.  Because  it  is  in  mortal  instead 
of  demortal  hands,  it  must  continuously  change  ownership. 
In  individual  cases,  every  possible  variety  of  change  may 
be  seen — from  miser  to  spendthrift,  from  strict  father  to 
dissolute  son,  from  religious  ancestor  to  irreligious  descend¬ 
ant,  from  the  bold,  the  vigorous,  and  the  enterprising,  to 
the  timid,  weak,  and  lazy.  Mathematical  law,  however, 
which  governs  the  group,  disregards  the  evidence  of  individ¬ 
ual  cases.  If  the  group  is  large  and  the  time  is  long,  the 
transition  of  private  property  is  mathematically  certain. 
Invariably,  it  changes  from  the  hands  of  those  who  use  it 
ill,  to  those  who  use  it  well.  It  ceases  to  be  sterile,  because 
those  in  whose  hands  it  is  sterile  retain  less  of  it.  It  multi¬ 
plies  because  those  in  whose  hands  it  is  prolific  get  most  of 
it.  Public  revenues  are  invariably  spent;  private  revenues 
are  sometimes  saved.  Private  property,  distributed  among 
a  vast  and  ever  changing  number  of  mortal  owners,  will  be 
found  in  possession  of  some  who  spend  income  and  capital. 


PRIVATE  PROPERTY 


289 


some  who  spend  income  but  save  capital,  and  some  who  save 
not  only  capital  but  a  large  part  of  income.  The  effect  on 
the  whole  group  may  be  stated  with  mathematical  certainty. 
The  revenue  from  public  property  in  demortal  possession, 
owned  by  the  community  as  a  whole,  will  be  spent  as  it 
comes ;  the  income  from  private  property  in  mortal  possession, 
owned  by  the  separate  individuals  of  the  community,  will 
be  partly  saved  and  will  enrich  posterity.  Mortal  possession 
fertilizes  private  property,  makes  it  fruitful,  and  enriches 
posterity  with  a  large  part  of  its  gains ;  demortal  possession 
does  not.  The  wealth  accumulated  in  every  nation  where 
private  property  is  held  sacred,  and  the  comparative  poverty 
of  every  nation  where  it  is  not,  add  abundant  corroborative 
evidence  of  this  mathematical  truth.  History  makes  clear 
certain  infallible  rules  whereby  to  predict  a  nation’s  rise  to 
wealth  or  its  fall  to  poverty.  If  demortals  plunder  mortals, 
the  country  will  become  poor,  wealth  will  change  from  mor¬ 
tal  to  demortal  possession,  will  lose  its  fruitfulness,  and  will 
no  longer  multiply.  If  mortals  plunder  demortals,  the 
country  is  on  the  road  to  wealth ;  for  property  is  then  taken 
from  demortal  possession,  where  it  is  unfruitful,,  and  de¬ 
livered  to  mortal  possession,  where  it  multiplies.  For  mor¬ 
tals  to  plunder  mortals  is  a  useless  economic  sin.  Mortal 
possession  always  ceases  by  death,  and  wealth  in  mortal 
hands  is  divested  and  returned  to  posterity  three  times  in 
every  century. 

150.  Civilization  rises  with  the  augmentation  of  the 
spirit  of  man;  and  the  function  of  private  property  in  this 
rise  may  be  briefly  summarized  from  the  evidence  as  follows : 

I.  It  introduces  an  important  factor  other  than  fe¬ 
cundity,  so  that  it  becomes  possible  for  the  strain  of  less 
prolific  women  to  survive  and  increase. 

II.  It  allies  itself  with  strict  indissoluble  monogamous 
marriage,  and  thus  becomes  an  important  auxiliary  to  those 
domestic  customs  best  adapted  to  augment  the  nervous 
organization. 

III.  Its  ownership  is  always  in  mortal  hands;  it  passes 


290  THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


continuously  from  one  mortal  to  another;  and  in  the  transi¬ 
tion  it  invariably  rewards  the  group  whose  intellectual  and 
spiritual  ascendancy  is  greatest. 

IV.  It  affords  to  this  group  the  means  of  sparing  women 
of  high  nervous  organization  all  travail  other  than  the 
crushing  travail  of  child-bearing. 

V.  It  is  fertile  and  multiplies,  so  that  it  grows  more 
abundant  with  the  passage  of  time. 

VI.  But,  as  its  ownership  is  mortal,  its  abundance  is 
perpetually  available  for  the  improved  posterity  of  any 
part  of  the  group. 

VII.  Its  continuous  acquisition  by  improving  strains 
effects  the  continuous  deprivation  of  unimproving  or  de¬ 
clining  strains;  and  therefore  tends  to  offset  the  numerical 
advantage  of  their  superior  fecundity. 


END  OF  VOLUME  I. 


Date  Due 

(*5  91 

41 

MRU 

^29 ’52 

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